Texas Rangers Week Five Recap + Oakland A’s Series Preview

Season record: 10-17

Week 5 record: 0-7

Series record: 3-5, 1 split

We’ve somehow made it through five weeks of baseball and the Rangers have been extremely hard to watch at times, particularly over this past week.

They followed their week four four-game win streak with a big fat eight game losing streak, getting swept by San Diego in a home-and-home series and then by Seattle, who they still have four more games against this year.

At -46, Texas has the worse run differential in the majors, with Boston following close behind at -42. And it’s not getting any easier any time soon or as they’re playing the first place Los Angeles Dodgers and the first place Oakland A’s. And speaking of run differentials, the Dodgers are the best in the MLB at +79.

Not sure there’s much more to recap this week aside from giving up four grand slams to San Diego and just overall looking uninterested in playing.

Keep in mind, we are one week from the trade deadline.

The Rangers start the homestand with four games against Oakland, who swept Texas just a couple weeks ago. As if the Rangers haven’t been embarrassing enough to watch recently, the series finale on Thursday will be a national broadcast on Fox.

The good news? We’re back to normal home start times of 7:05 p.m. CDT.

Monday’s game will have LHP Jesús Luzardo starting for Oakland and Lance Lynn for the Rangers. Luzardo pitched five innings and gave up just two hits and two walks, striking out five, in his no-decision outing against Texas two weeks ago. Lynn went 6.1 innings, giving up just one run on three hits, three walks, and seven strikeouts.

Sean Manaea will start on Tuesday, you’ll remember he wasn’t sharp against the Rangers in their last meetup. He went just 3.1 innings and gave up four runs on six hits and a walk. His next start against the Angels went about the same, but his two starts after he went five innings each and gave up a combined four runs.

Kyle Gibson will pitch for Texas, and his last start against Oakland was one of his best starts of the season. He went six innings, giving up three runs on four hits and two walks, striking out nine.

Oakland is 5-1 in games Mike Fiers starts even though he hasn’t been very sharp with a 5.81 ERA and 1.55 WHIP. The Rangers will face him on Wednsday. He gave up four runs on seven hits and two walks, striking out just two Rangers in his previous start against them this season. Kolby Allard will make his first career start against Oakland.

Thursday’s nationally broadcasted game will have Jordan Lyles starting for the Rangers. While we haven’t seen him face Oakland as a Ranger, he is 2-0 in three career starts against the A’s with a 1.45 ERA and 1.07 WHIP. He made two of those starts last season and one in 2013. Chris Bassitt will start for Oakland, he’s made four starts in eight career games against Texas, and has a career 1-2 record with a 5.84 ERA and 1.38 WHIP in 24.1 innings against them.

Game times are at 7:05 p.m. CDT for Monday - Wednesday, Thrusday’s game on Fox is scheduled for 5:37 p.m. CDT.