The Texas Rangers are on a four-game win streak after beating the Toronto Blue Jays on Tuesday. Those wins have come at the right time. The Rangers were in the lead in the American League West entering the All-Star break and have been there for most of the season. But the second half of their campaign has not been as generous to the Rangers as the first half was.
The Rangers hit the All-Star break with a 52-39 record They've been 27-25 since then. Before this four-game winning streak, the Rangers were 23-25 after the All-Star break. That's not great by any means.
Their slide has had a major impact on the AL West standings. The Astros lead the division by one game with 16 games to go, but they're tied in the loss column with the Rangers. The Seattle Mariners have been the bizarro Rangers, and a second-half surge from those in the Pacific Northwest has them tied with the Rangers in the division and also only one game back from the Astros. This division race is going to come down to the wire. There's going to be a lot of pressure on these teams and their players to eke out a division pennant. All three teams will need everyone to step up and make big plays. The Rangers are no exception. So who do the Rangers need that to be?
Evan Carter
The Rangers' slide also saw the team lose major contributors for an extended period of time due to injury. One of those was losing Max Scherzer, who the Rangers acquired in a midseason trade with the New York Mets at the trade deadline.
Luckily for the Rangers, their starting pitching staff was already one of the best in the majors despite Jacob deGrom, Texas' big acquisition in free agency, making only six starts on the season. Of the quartet of Dane Dunning, Jon Gray, Nathan Eovaldi, and Jordan Montgomery, all but Montgomery have an ERA below four on the season, and Eovaldi's is below three. Andrew Heaney, a likely replacement for Scherzer in the rotation has also had a solid season and a very good season a year ago with the Dodgers.
But losing Adolis Garcia might be a bigger blow. Garcia leads the team in home runs and RBI on the season with 34 and 100 apiece. He's third on the team in slugging percentage behind only Corey Seager and Mitch Garver and is fourth on the team in OPS behind Seager, Garver, and Marcus Semien. To make matters worse, his replacement is largely unproven at the MLB level.
That replacement would be Evan Carter. Carter was Texas' number-one prospect before getting called up by the club in September. He made his debut on September 8th against the Oakland Athletics.
There is plenty to like about Carter, who was ranked as the 26th best prospect in baseball according to Baseball America, the 41st best prospect according to MLB.com, and the 22nd best prospect according to Baseball Prospectus. For good reasons too. In three seasons in the minors, Carter hit 27 home runs and 152 RBI across 246 games with hitting lines of .285/.410/.459/.869.
He's only played four games in the majors, but that hitting acumen has seemed to translate. He already has a home run to his belt along with 2 RBI and has posted hitting lines of .300/.429/.600/1.029. It's early, but if he can keep those numbers up and approximate the production Texas was getting from Garcia, that would be huge.
Conclusion
Texas hangs its hat on its offense. The Rangers are third in the majors in runs scored on the year behind only the Atlanta Braves and Los Angeles Dodgers. They're tied for sixth in home runs with the New York Yankees. Only the Braves have a higher batting average. Texas needs their offense to continue humming to squeeze by the Astros and Mariners to win the AL West. They need a lift from everybody. But if they can get that from their number one prospect in Evan Carter, then they just might be able to hold on to win their division and make some noise in the playoffs.