ARLINGTON -- You can’t win a baseball game if you don’t score any runs. That’s pretty simple.
But scoring runs has been anything but simple for the Rangers in 2025. Never more so than on Wednesday night, when they fell, 2-0, to the Blue Jays to drop their third straight series.
It marked the club's seventh time being shut out in 2025, which is fourth most in MLB at the conclusion of Wednesday's game.
"We just got shut down,” said manager Bruce Bochy. “We got a hit to start off the game, and we got no-hit basically after that for 27 outs. The pitching did a job on us.”
Utilityman Josh Smith led off with a single. The Rangers went hitless afterward, with a pair of walks from Smith and another from rookie Alejandro Osuna. The season-low one hit was the fewest in a game since Sept. 15, 2024, at Seattle.
"It was a pretty frustrating game,” Smith said. “I guess there's really not much to say. I definitely didn't think that'd be the only hit, but just kind of been a frustrating year so far. Our pitching staff is doing a really good job, and we're just not really helping them out at all."
The Rangers’ offensive struggles have been a season-long issue. So much so that they’ve already fired offensive coordinator Donnie Ecker and brought in Bret Boone to join the hitting staff.
When the Rangers dismissed Ecker, the offense was 25th in wRC+ (85), 25th in slugging (.359), 26th in batting average (.228), 28th in on-base percentage (.285), 29th in runs (113) and 29th in walk rate (6.7%).
From May 6 through the conclusion of Wednesday’s loss to Toronto, Texas is tied for 16th in walk rate (8.0%), tied for 25th in runs (72), 28th in slugging (.348), last in on-base percentage (.277) and last in average (.206).
"Offensively, you just want things to click,” third baseman Josh Jung said. "I think it's coming. I mean, we're all hoping it's coming. We're putting in work. It's not a lack of effort. It’s just not falling our way, truly. … I truly believe hitting is contagious, and once it gets rolling, it's going to roll quickly. We've just got to get it rolling.”
Easier said than done, though.
The players are putting in the work. There’s no lack of care on behalf of all of these guys, most of whom have had success at the big league level for years.
"I think that's the hard part,” Smith said. “Obviously nobody wants to do bad. Everybody's trying to go out and get hits. I think we just need to have collectively better at-bats, seeing more pitches, grinding at-bats. It’s just a lot of 1-2-3 innings, no pressure on the defense. It's just been frustrating.”
Even Corey Seager’s return to the lineup didn’t do much on Wednesday. Entering the day, the Rangers were 15-11 with an average of 3.85 runs per game when Seager was on the field this season. Without him, Texas was 12-18, averaging 2.83 runs per game.
But Seager himself went 0-for-4 in his return, including a strikeout in the bottom of the ninth as the Rangers attempted a futile walk-off effort.
Seager, who is as in tune with his swing as anybody in baseball, said he’s not sure what the exact fix is for this offense at this point in the season.
"I wish we could answer that and figure it out, but you've just gotta compete,” Seager said. “You can't hide from it. We know we're struggling. Everybody in here knows it, but everybody in here is confident about a guy beside him, so we've gotta go out there and continue to plug away and hopefully things turn around. We’ve got a lot of guys with experience here, a lot of guys that have succeeded up here, so nobody's wondering if they can do it. Everybody's just trying to figure out how to get back there.”
It’s good to be frustrated, Seager added. Maybe that’s the best way to get this team back on track.
"Sometimes that’s good,” Seager said. “You just let it out and it almost frees you up that way. Nobody's at that point. Nobody wants to be at that point. But right now, everybody's just head down, trying to go about their job and figure it out and make this team better.”