Rangers batters learning from offensive woes

Rangers hitting coach Luis Ortiz compared the club’s current offensive struggles to how it feels to be a parent: no matter how many times you tell them what to do or what to fix, you have to wait for them to learn the lesson themselves.

“It still is gonna take some time for them to learn,” Ortiz said. “Sometimes you gotta go through the struggles to learn the lessons and you have to live it. The challenge is that playoff-bound teams, good teams that are playing really well, have good defense. They have good algorithms on defense. When we hit the ball hard, somebody is there. So 10 years ago, those would have been hits. Now, they're outs and we just have to overcome that.”

Texas has lost nine of its last 10 games, including a six-game slide on the road trip between San Francisco and Houston. The Rangers have also been outscored 46-26 during this 10-game period.

In a series loss to the Yankees at home, the Rangers were no-hit and then the following night were shut out in the series finale. It was the second time the Rangers have been no-hit this season. Second baseman Nick Solak said the recent struggles come as opposing teams and pitchers have learned the best way to attack Rangers hitters -- breaking balls and offspeed pitches.

The Rangers are among the bottom teams in the league in batting average (.193) and slugging (.204) against offspeed and breaking pitches.

“I think there's some things that we're doing well,” Solak said. “We’re hitting the ball hard right at guys, I think there’s just things we need to work on. We’re just taking it day by day and working on these things before the game. We're a good fastball hitting team. I think a lot, a lot of opposing teams and their scouting know that. I think that's something that we can continue to work on and continue to get better at.”

Ortiz said hitting breaking balls is a specified skill and the ones you see in the big league are wildly different from ones in the Minors with the horizontal and vertical break of the pitches.

Manager Chris Woodward said it’s frustrating because the Rangers hitters know a breaking ball is coming, it’s sometimes hard to recognize when it breaks late.

“We're just facing good teams and good pitching and it's a great experience for our guys and that brings great lessons,” Ortiz said. Those are the teams that you're going to face in the playoffs, so we are learning a lot and we are working on making adjustments. The only way that you're going to be able to overcome some stuff is experiencing it.”

Ortiz said that with a young team without a lot of service time, this rough period is a learning experience, comparing them to the 2013 Houston Astros team that went 51-111 before going 86-76 in ‘15 and winning 100 games and the World Series in ‘17.

He emphasized that things are getting better and at-bats are improving, even if the results aren’t showing up immediately.

“Now, nobody remembers that [2013 Astros team],” Ortiz said. “That's the challenge of having young teams that are learning a lot of stuff in the big leagues. We're going to take our struggles and learn from it and that's the key. I tell the guys that we're going to make mistakes, but failure is if we don't learn from those mistakes.”