MINNEAPOLIS -- In the span of two weeks, the most important weeks of the season, the Rangers lost their two most productive hitters -- Joc Pederson and Josh Jung -- to a fractured left hand and right wrist, respectively.
Manager Skip Schumaker has said repeatedly over the last month that the Rangers need their “dudes to be dudes.” But that’s hard when the dudes aren’t available.
“It's OK to be emotional at the time,” Schumaker said. “You can feel some emotion behind losing your one- and three-hole hitters. But the reality is, [there are] two games left. As terrible as this is to say, you have to move on as fast as you can. It's callous. I get it. But next man up. Guys have to step up when guys get hurt. Who is going to step up for two days?”
On Saturday, it wasn't the remaining metaphorical dudes that stepped up. It was the bottom of the Rangers' lineup -- Nicky Lopez, Danny Jansen, Evan Carter and Alejandro Osuna -- that led them to a 6-2 win over the Twins to keep their season alive going into Game 162 on Sunday afternoon.
The win moved the Rangers (80-81) ahead of the Astros (79-81) atop the American League West by one-half game. Houston similarly is playing for its life against the A’s in West Sacramento and could re-tie Texas by the end of the night. Either way, the division crown will come down to the final game. The Astros own the tiebreaker thanks to winning the season series.
In Saturday’s win, the Rangers' bottom four hitters -- including pinch-hitters Cody Freeman and Justin Foscue -- combined to go 7-for-15 with a walk and four RBIs, including a home run from Jansen. And, for good measure, cleanup hitter Jake Burger launched a solo homer of his own in the fifth inning.
“That's what we're asking for,” Schumaker said. “There's a lot of guys that want to be the guy, and maybe there's a little bit of pressure on them because of wanting to be the guy so bad for their teammates. That's totally fair. But that's why I keep saying it's the collective. It's the nine guys that have to do this thing together. You just can't focus on just one guy. If we're focusing on one guy that's replacing JJ or replacing Joc, it's not going to work.”