ARLINGTON -- It should surprise no one that Marcus Semien fully intended to be playing in the Rangers' 4-0 loss to the Twins on Thursday. Maybe even playing on Wednesday and Tuesday, too, if you had let him.
But the Rangers were mathematically eliminated from postseason contention on Tuesday, leaving little need for any extra boost the club could have gotten from getting their Iron Man back from the injured list.
Semien was originally slated to miss the rest of the regular season with a left foot fracture and a lisfranc strain in the same foot. In typical Marcus Semien fashion, he worked relentlessly to put himself into a position where he could contribute in a potential World Series run.
“I was ready to play,” Semien said. “I got myself ready to go, probably a little early for this injury. But with where we're at as a team, we decided it's probably the smartest thing for my foot [to shut it down]. But I wanted to give it a go. The numbers just didn't add up from where we were, so I had to accept it.”
Semien is notorious for playing every single day. His 127 games this year are the fewest he’s had across a 162-game season since 2017, when he played 85 due to a right wrist contusion. He no doubt wanted to be back on the field, but he knew it likely wasn’t the best for his long-term health.
“I think that it wouldn't have been the smartest thing to play while we’re not in it based on the timeline of my foot,” Semien said. “Could I do it? Yes, I was ready to go. It's hard for me to show up here every day knowing there's no games to prepare for anymore, but all I can do is support the guys and help them finish strong.”
The shutdown puts an end to a less-than-ideal season for the Rangers’ unofficial captain.
Semien was in the midst of the worst offensive season of his career with a .669 OPS, despite slashing .333/.429/.625 over his last seven games before the injury. The 35-year-old hit .324/.383/.549 in June, but if you take that month out of the equation, he would have a .204/.284/.313 (.597 OPS) slash line.
Even through his offensive struggles, Semien continued to be one of the best defensive second basemen in baseball with six defensive runs saved (first in AL) and seven outs above average (first in AL) at the time of his injury.
“I started off really slow and kind of found my footing in June,” Semien reflected. “I felt good going into the [All-Star] break, and then I hit another little slump there. I felt like I was getting hot before I got hurt and was ready to finish strong. That was a frustrating part. The team was pretty much in it the whole time. I was enjoying playing meaningful games. Once I went down, watching the guys play hard and go on that run, I was looking forward to coming back. It just didn't work out for us. So pretty frustrating overall.”
Frustrating is a the most apt description for this 2025 season, both for Semien and for the Rangers as a whole.
Entering Thursday, the Rangers rotation had an MLB-best 3.41 ERA. The bullpen had a 3.51 ERA, good for third in the American League. They had a plus-81 run differential, higher than the Mariners (+76), who just clinched the AL West the previous night. For all intents and purposes, this should be a playoff team.
“This team in general, has a lot of work to do to just get out of this funk we've been in the last two years,” Semien said. “You think about the last two years, it's not where we want to be. We want to be in the postseason.
“I'm not the one making the decisions on who's in this clubhouse. I definitely know the kind of team I want to play on. That’s guys who are hungry and want to go for a championship every single year. There were just some things that didn't work out for us as an offense, and it kind of slowed us down. That ended up being the hardest part of this season.”
And yeah, the story of this season is an underperforming offense, even before the likes of Semien, Corey Seager, Evan Carter and Wyatt Langford landed on the injured list. On Thursday morning, the Rangers’ 93 wRC+ ranked 22nd in baseball. Their .235 average and .304 on-base percentage both ranked 26th.
The offense never got to a place where it was genuinely firing on all cylinders, Semien included. That’s a huge part of why the Rangers will be home in October.
“I just think that we can always be better. We can be better in the way that we approach each and every game,” Semien added. “I'm thinking about the last two years of us not being in the playoffs, right? So there is a lot of room for improvement, and the way we get out of that is staying together, working together, playing hard and loving the game.”