This story was excerpted from Kennedi Landry’s Rangers Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
ARLINGTON -- The American League West was a hotbed for Trade Deadline moves this year from the Lone Star State to Orange County.
The teams in the Silver Boot Series specifically acquired two of the biggest names on the market -- Max Scherzer to the Rangers and Justin Verlander back to the Astros -- making an already tight division race even more interesting.
Entering Sunday’s slate of games, the Rangers’ lead atop the division sat at 2 1/2 games over the Astros, with the Mariners and Angels following, respectively. Despite the best season the organization has enjoyed in the last decade, Texas still has its division rival right on its heels.
“We knew that coming into this, it was going to be up to us to be the team to contend and be in there,” said Rangers manager Bruce Bochy. “You’re looking at Houston, the reigning world champions. Looking at the Angels, they’ve been playing good baseball. It’s up to us to turn the page from what’s happened in the past and become contenders. This is the way it’s gonna be the rest of the way.”
It’ll be a dog fight down the stretch, Bochy reiterated, but the Rangers did all they could to acquire the right players to help out in the division race.
In one of the busiest Trade Deadlines in recent Rangers history, the club acquired Scherzer, a three-time Cy Young Award winner, from the Mets before doubling down and trading for Jordan Montgomery and Chris Stratton from the Cardinals in order to bolster the pitching staff.
Both are veteran pitchers with playoff experience who add depth and leadership to the pitching staff to rival Houston’s own rotation headed by Verlander and Framber Valdez, who tossed a no-hitter on Aug. 1.
The 2023 version of Scherzer hasn’t looked like the likely Hall of Famer we all know, having posted a 4.01 ERA with 121 strikeouts over 107 2/3 innings. But he stopped short of saying being on a winning team would revitalize his season.
“Yeah, hopef—,” he began before pausing. “I don't want to say that, because every time I take the mound, I don't care if I'm in first or last, I'm coming out there to pitch at 100%. I'm going to give you everything I've got, every single time. But I'm not an idiot. When you have first place on the line and you have an organization that's trying to win and it's right in front of us right now … where we're at in the season, there's definitely a jolt.
“I like pitching in these situations. I like having the ball in this type of atmosphere. I don't get fazed by it. I actually want to rise up to it. So for me, it's good to be in this spot.”
With less than two months left in the regular season, the Rangers have a long way to go to maintain their lead in the AL West. But there's no doubt that the front office did exactly what it needed to do to improve the club at the Deadline.
“We realized that there's competition from -- obviously, Houston is the team to beat, they're the World Series champions,” said general manager Chris Young. “Los Angeles has been a very solid team. And Seattle, they were a playoff team last year and I don't count them out by any means. So this division is not easy, and we just need to focus on playing good baseball and playing up to the best of our abilities night in and night out.”