MINNEAPOLIS -- The Rangers’ 2026 season did not go out with a bang. It went out with a whimper.
The Rangers fell, 6-4, to the Twins on Sunday afternoon at Target Field, squandering any chance to win the American League West on the final day of the regular season. The only way Texas could have won the division and gotten into the postseason was with a win over the Twins and an Astros loss to the A’s.
Regardless of the Astros’ postseason outcome, they will go down as the worst division winner in baseball history, at best finishing at 81-81.
The worst division winners before now have been the 2005 Padres (82-80), the 1973 Mets (82-79) and the 2006 Cardinals (83-78).
It was quantitatively the worst division in baseball history -- but it was a division that the Rangers couldn’t take advantage of.
The specifics of Game 162 don’t matter in the grand scheme of things. But the performance on the field was a perfect illustration of what has stood in the Rangers’ way all season long.
MacKenzie Gore -- who was the club’s prized offseason acquisition -- was on fumes throughout the last month. He allowed one run in 2 1/3 innings before it effectively became a bullpen game for a bullpen that entered the day with a 4.44 ERA, 10th in AL.
And the offense, missing two of its productive hitters in Josh Jung and Joc Pederson thanks to fractured wrists, came out flat. They mustered just three baserunners in seven innings against Twins starter Dean Kremer, who entered the day with a 4.97 ERA. The only run production came on solo homers from catchers Elias Diaz and Danny Jansen and a two-run shot from Corey Seager in the ninth.
The big boys need to be on the field and be producing. For much of the year, the Rangers’ big boys did neither.