First loss of 2024 brings Texas Rangers ‘back to baseball’ after euphoric opening weekend

ARLINGTON — We’ll now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

More or less, at least. Thursday’s Texas Rangers game included a banner drop. Saturday’s brought along a World Series championship ring reveal. Sunday’s game vs. the Chicago Cubs — minus the gold-trimmed jerseys, which the Rangers will now shelve until April — felt a bit more normal.

Back to business. Back to baseball.

“Actually,” Rangers manager Bruce Bochy cracked before the series finale. “I was hoping that there was something else going on [Sunday]. Winning the World Series, as I’ve said, is the gift that keeps on giving.”

Fair point. Opening day ended with an emotional 10th-inning walk-off win. Saturday’s pregame ring ceremony preceded a Texas-sized slugfest. The third game of the Rangers’ season-opening series — one that carried significantly less pagentry than the first two — just revived some bad memories.

The Rangers’ bullpen, in a 9-5 loss to the Cubs, coughed away any real chance Texas had at a win. The luster fades a tad when a heap of travel-happy Chicago fans are left celebrating inside the ballpark that quite literally rolled out a red carpet in the previous two games.

In the business of baseball, all business is not necessarilly good business.

Closer José Leclerc entered in the ninth inning of a 5-5 game. By the time Bochy had retrieved the ball from the mitt of one of Texas’ postseason heroes, the Cubs led by a run and still had the bases loaded. Left-hander Jacob Latz — Texas’ best available option with Josh Sborz, David Robertson and Kirby Yates each having thrown in the series’ first two games — allowed three of those runners to score on a pair of singles.

It wasn’t a blown save because there was no save situation to be had, though it didn’t feel all too different from any of the league-high 33 they blew last regular season.

“He was just missing,” Bochy said of Leclerc. “and it came back to get us.”

Leclerc walked a pair of batters and was tagged with an earned run Thursday. On Sunday, he let three-straight baserunners reach with one out in the ninth. Michael Busch walked on six pitches, Nico Hoerner reached on a swinging-bunt single and No. 8 hitter Mike Tauchman walked on six pitches too.

The Rangers nearly escaped unscathed when No. 9 hitter Miguel Amaya lined up a groundball back to Gold Glove second baseman Marcus Semien, who fired a throw to catcher Andrew Knizner for a force out, but Leclerc then walked leadoff hitter Ian Happ on seven pitches to score the go-ahead run. Latz replaced Leclerc and allowed back-to-back singles from Seiya Suzuki and Cody Bellinger.

Leclerc has thrown just 24 of his first 53 pitches of the season for strikes and walked five batters to one strikeout.

“He’s not quite locked in with his command,” Bochy said. “But he’s not missing by much. He’s fine, his stuffs fine. You know, early in the season here, sometimes it takes a little time to get that good rhythm, that good sync. He’s going to be fine, probably just worked ahead a little too much [Sunday].”

This Rangers’ bullpen has looked remarkably deeper and more versatile through three games this season than it did last regular season. Sborz, Yates and Robertson have yet to allow a run in six combined innings. Bochy pitched Sborz in the seventh inning on opening day and in the sixth on Saturday. He used Robertson in the 10th on Thursday and in the seventh two days later, while Yates pitched the eighth inning in both games.

On Sunday, right-handers José Ureña and Yerry Rodríguez — both of whom had to win jobs on the roster in camp — combined to pitch 4 and 1/3 scoreless innings. Ureña, a starter by trade, debuted as Texas’ long man and relieved starter Jon Gray (3.2 innings pitched, 4 earned runs) in the fourth; Rodríguez, a flame-thrower with improved command, pitched a perfect seventh and stranded the bases loaded in the eighth.

“Both of them got into traffic and kept their poise out there and made pitches,” Bochy said. “Ureña, he did what you hope your long guy does. Come in and stop things and be the bridge to get to your other guys. Yerry is one of those guys who can help us in high-leverage situations, and I thought he did a great job in a tie ballgame.”

It ended grim, but, the season’s first series provided more reasons to be optimistic about the bullpen than not. It’s still too early to tell how exactly how effective the relief core will be considering health, fatigue and possible regression will all play deciding roles, though early returns suggest it could be at least an upgrade over last year’s showing.

Sunday might’ve stirred some anxiety-inducing memories of last year’s unstable bullpen. For now, consider it the third game out of 162, and a return to the normalcy of the regular season.

“It’s back to baseball,” Bochy said. “Not that it wasn’t, but the whole focus now is on the game, and that’s what we talked about.”

Twitter: @McFarland_Shawn

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