'Bad execution': Rangers cap rough series with two-out blunders

SEATTLE -- The Rangers’ high-profile West Coast swing against a pair of division leaders ended on a sour note Sunday in the form of a 5-0 loss to the Mariners at T-Mobile Park.

Texas has now been swept three times this season, with the latest coming against their AL West rivals. The Rangers have won just one of their past 12 series in Seattle, dating back to July 2019.

For the second time this season, Texas managed only two hits off Seattle righty Logan Gilbert. Andrew Knizer notched the first with a two-out single in the third, and Nathaniel Lowe roped a two-out double -- coming off his bat at 103.6 mph -- down the line in the fourth. Both times, though, the Rangers went down quietly on the next batter.

Gilbert finished with eight scoreless frames, and has now pitched 14 2/3 scoreless innings against the Rangers this season.

“Really, their starters, that’s the story of this series,” Rangers manager Bruce Bochy said. “We couldn’t do much against their starters. That’s a really good staff, but you’ve got to find ways to score runs. We had a tough time.”

Seattle had no such issues at the plate. Rangers starter Dane Dunning allowed two runs on four hits and three walks -- all of which came with two outs.

The real damage started the second time through the order, when Mitch Haniger rocketed a two-out 111.3 mph double to left in the fourth before Luke Raley followed with an RBI double of his own. The next inning, it was the same story; Josh Rojas came up with two outs and hit a double, then scored from second on a wild pitch that took a hard bounce off the backstop behind home plate and almost skipped into the first-base dugout.

“Mainly for me, it was just bad execution when it came to two outs,” Dunning said. “The two doubles [in the fourth], those can go either way, they put some good swings on the ball. I thought I threw the ball well in those situations. But with Rojas, looking back on it now, I probably would throw a cutter up or something like that.”

That was just about the theme for this entire series. Against a Mariners lineup that came into the weekend hitting .206 with two outs -- third-worst in baseball -- the Rangers allowed nine runs on 13 hits, 10 walks, a hit batter and three wild pitches when an out away from getting out of the frame.

“With the hits, that’s going to happen,” Dunning said. “Overall as a staff, where we struggled was the 10 walks. That’s free bases, that’s free pitches, just uncompetitive at-bats. I had three walks myself; those are the things I lose sleep on. The hits are going to happen; that means you’re aggressive, you’re in the zone … Eliminating those walks can help you significantly.”

The free passes really bit the bullpen. In the eighth inning, Cole Winn -- making his first relief appearance since getting called up for the second time this season -- needed just five pitches to get two outs, but then he hit a batter, Ryan Bliss stole a base and then Winn walked Raley to set up another Seattle rally. Winn allowed a run to come home on an RBI single before the Mariners scored their second run of the game on a wild pitch.

And with the way Texas’ bats have struggled, just a couple of crooked numbers put the game out of reach. After Lowe’s fourth-inning double, Gilbert and reliever Austin Voth retired the final 16 Rangers in order to end the game.

Texas finished its six-game road trip with 15 runs scored -- four of which came in the ninth inning of a six-run game Saturday.

Since May 8, the Rangers boast a MLB-worst .625 OPS, have scored 117 runs (29th in MLB) and logged a .219 batting average (28th). In that span, they’ve gone from being tied atop the American League West to falling 8 1/2 games back of Seattle. It’s Texas’ largest gap in the division since the end of the 2022 season.

“We’re a better offense than this,” Bochy said. “We have some guys struggling, that’s fair to say. We’re banged up a little bit, not to make any excuses. You’ve still got to find a way to put some runs on the board and we just couldn’t do it.”