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SEATTLE – The Rangers’ first attempt at playing “spoiler” – which teams play for when there’s nothing left to play for – didn’t go so well. Three mistakes. 10 runs. Cleveland’s Guardians left the visiting clubhouse soaked after winning the AL Central on Sunday.

Oh, well: there’s nothing like the present for another chance.

The Rangers may not be able to prevent Seattle from returning to the playoffs for the first time since 2001, ending MLB’s longest playoff drought, but they could put things off a little longer. Maybe make the Mariners sweat a little despite the cool breeze from Puget Sound. Or at least push the celebration to Oakland valuation weekend. Whatever. Just a little more competitive than what the Rangers showed against Cleveland.

“They’re in our division, so if we can disrupt things, especially for a team in our division where we have to play a lot and compete with to make it through the post-season, it’s probably [means] a little bit more,” said Rangers manager Tony Beasley. “It’s a great team, a very good team. We have to roll in there and play better.”

And herein lies the problem. Or problems.

Nothing embodies this Rangers season better than the series featuring Seattle, especially the games set in beautiful T-Mobile Park. Seattle leads the series 12-4 and with a sweep it could equal an opponent’s season domination over the Rangers. Seven games have been decided by one point – the Mariners have won six. The Rangers lost four games to Seattle just before the All-Star break and three more the week after to basically complete all the Rangers’ dreams of flirting with .500. Sounds like 2022 in a nutshell?

In reality, it’s been a minute since Seattle was anything less than a horror show for the Rangers.

They were due to open there in the 2020 season: it was wiped out by the pandemic.

The Rangers never recovered.

They are 3-20 in Seattle since then, 12-33 (.267) overall against the Mariners. Even Houston (.313) hasn’t thrashed them that hard.

At every key moment of the games this year, Seattle has been executed as the Rangers struggle. Of their 12 losses, the Rangers led in seven, including in five of them sometime after the sixth inning. The Mariners outscored the Rangers 31-12 in the seventh inning or later of those games.

“Seattle tends to get us late one way or another,” Beasley said. “A situation arises and they get a big hit or something. We played them pretty well. But I talked about it very early on, about moments. The game is full of moments and you recognize that the game can really get out of hand or turn in your favor there. We have to try to attack those moments and either minimize the damage or hurt more, so to speak, for the opposition. They did a good job at those times.”

Even more bad news: These Mariners aren’t going anywhere.

Last winter they signed Cy Young Award winner Robbie Ray 2021 for five years. They probably introduced Rookie of the Year Julio Rodriguez this season and then signed him to a $210 million 12-year deal. And that’s only the guaranteed part. They traded for righthander Luis Castillo on the deadline and took him out of the Rangers’ clutches. And then they signed him last week for a five-year extension. They will be here for a while.

Meanwhile, the core Rangers who will face them over the next decade have not fared well in Seattle in the short or longer term.

Corey Seager, who may be living in the shadow of his ex-Mariner brother Kyle, has three hits in 22 at bats at T-Mobile Park this season, none of them for extra bases. For his career, he is a .143/.205/.229/.434 slasher in Seattle. Seager pays a lot of attention to hitting backdrops. He likes the setting in Arlington, which he believes may have played a part in his success at Globe Life Field. It’s worth wondering if the opposite is true in Seattle.

Marcus Semien, who has more experience than Seager in the park, hits .174 this year with a .448 OPS in 26 at bats in Seattle. For his career a .228/.285/.439/.724 slash.

It is clearly not their favorite park. But insult isn’t really the problem. The Rangers lineup, especially the top half, is similar to that in the division. It’s all about pitching. And here lies another problem.

Houston, which has won the fifth division for the past six years, and Seattle have built the starting rotations from the inside out. Houston, with the best starting rotation ERA and WHIP in the AL, has 92 homegrown starter starts. They finished it off with Justin Verlander. Seattle has 55 homegrown starts this year, and Ray and Castillo have been added in the past two years. The Rangers have eight (Martín Pérez, who played three years with Minnesota and Boston between Rangers stints, does not count).

There may be throws along the way, but the Rangers haven’t put a single homegrown starter into their rotation in years. Until they do, they can spend lavishly trying to narrow the gap between them and AL West’s leaders.

Or they can keep coming to the Great Northwest, enjoy whatever the season’s salmon is, and try to play some more “spoiler.”

Western Devastation

During the Rangers’ six-year losing drought, they have won 100 fewer games in the AL West than King of the West Houston. As MLB reduces games within the division for 2023, a look at the intra-divisional records since 2017:

Team WL pc.
Houston 271-149 .645
Seattle 207-207 .500
Oakland 203-202 .493
Los Angeles 185-226 .450
rangers 169-245 .408

rangers vs. the West

An overview of how the Rangers have fared against their divisional opponents since 2017:

Team WL pc.
Los Angeles 51-51 .500
Oakland 43-62 .410
Seattle 40-62 .392
Houston 35-70 .333

On Twitter: @Evan_P_Grant

Rangers individual efforts in vain as team nears 90 loss season mark

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