Texas Rangers Defy Injuries to Stay in American League Playoff Hunt

The Texas Rangers injured list looks like a veritable who's who from their World Series-winning roster in 2023.

Any lineup including Corey Seager, Marcus Semien, Evan Carter and Adolis Garcia would appear on its way to being quite formidable. And a pitching staff that included Nathan Eovaldi, Jon Gray, Josh Sborz and Cody Bradford would have arms we know can get the job done in October.

Manager Bruce Bochy doesn't have any of those players available right now, and yet the Rangers just got done sweeping the Milwaukee Brewers, the team with the best record in Major League Baseball. The series before, the Rangers took two of three games from the Houston Astros, who sit atop the AL West (for the moment).

Now seven games over .500 for the first time all season (oh, boy), the Rangers are, somehow, not far behind in the division (2 1/2 games) and the AL Wild Card (one game). How are they winning games? Well, for example, long-time minor leaguer and waiver-wire pickup Michael Helman just had a career of a series against the Brewers, hitting a grand slam and saving a home run on defense. Sometimes, it takes a village. Sometimes you even have to borrow players from the next village over.

The Rangers might get Seager back from an appendectomy before the end of the regular season, and Garcia should be "able to swing a bat" soon if not run because of a strained quad, Bochy said. Semien, Carter, Eovaldi and Gray are too injured and don't have enough time left to return. But the Rangers have been going without in some form or fashion for most of the season.

Looking at the Baseball Prospectus Injured List Ledger, only six teams in MLB have lost more value to injuries in 2025 -- the Astros, Orioles, Red Sox, Brewers, Marlins and Yankees. You'll notice four other teams on that list as being postseason-viable. All teams have injuries. But the Rangers' timing might be worst of all, with just 2 1/2 weeks left in the regular season. Bochy isn't courting sympathy.

"I think every team has to deal with injuries," Bochy said recently. "It's all about depth. We're not going to use that as an excuse, I just think if you look at the year as a whole, everything hasn't gone quite the way we thought it would."

Paradoxically, the Rangers run differential resembles more of a team that's 20 games over .500 than the reality. The offense has really come on in the second half, and the bullpen has been pieced together to be effective enough. Early in the season, Seager, Semien, Garcia, Jake Burger, Josh Jung, Joc Pederson and others didn't hit like they were capable of -- be it because of injury or slump. But the Rangers also never got more than six games under .500 all season, so they haven't had to spend any inordinate amount of energy digging out of a deep hole. It's been a long dog-paddle of a season, but the shore is close.

Another factor helping the Rangers hang around is that the National League seems to have the best teams. No one on the AL side with a top record strikes fear, or even much pause, into anyone. They've all got serious flaws. The AL must send a representative to play the NL side in the World Series, but the time seems right for an NL coup that puts two Senior Circuit teams in the championship. How about a Brewers-Dodgers Fall Classic? Padres-Cubs? Phillies-Giants? Mix and match!

The Rangers, with their gumption, can be the AL rep. What happens once they get there is an open question. If Jacob deGrom can take his remarkable comeback season and find another gear... maybe? And if Seager can hit like he does but without an appendix... maybe? The Rangers can't possibly have anyone left on the farm like Helman.

Still, rather than dismiss the Rangers out of hand, we could just sit back and watch.