What's up with the Rangers' 'hit and miss' offense?

ARLINGTON -- For the second night in a row, the Rangers’ offense was left without answers for a Reds’ starting pitcher for much of the night.

In Saturday’s 8-4 loss, Texas fell at the hands of Hunter Greene, who fired off seven scoreless innings with six strikeouts.

The Rangers' offense cobbled together just two baserunners against Greene -- a walk from Marcus Semien in the fourth inning and a double from Josh Smith in the fifth -- and was kept scoreless until back-to-back homers in the ninth inning came from rookie Davis Wendzel and Corey Seager, along with an RBI double from Smith.

Though Texas came back to avoid the shutout, the offense was relatively lifeless for eight whole innings. Even sitting at .500, that’s been an unfortunate trend for the club early this season.

“We've been sputtering a bit," manager Bruce Bochy said. "It’s been hit and miss with the offense. So it's always good to show a lot of life there with some good at-bats. We'll come out and be ready to go tomorrow."

So what’s up with the Rangers’ offense, which was the best in the American League in 2023?

Corey Seager not being entirely Corey Seager-like

To start, the Rangers are not concerned about Seager.

They will likely never be truly concerned about Seager’s ability to string hits together eventually. But there’s no doubt that Seager’s current struggles are contributing to the team’s offensive struggles as a whole at the moment.

Though he hit his second homer of the season in the loss on Friday, he’s slashing .247/.336/.330 in 25 games this season.

The superstar shortstop did undergo offseason surgery to repair a left sports hernia, causing him to miss all but the final four games of Spring Training, and he’s clearly still trying to get his timing and power back to form.

“These guys are human,” Bochy said. “With Corey, come on, we know he’s going to hit. The guy missed all of Spring Training and really couldn’t do a lot this winter. I thought this would be a slow process with him getting in the flow of things like he normally is. Yeah, he’s fine.

“He’s one of the best hitters in the game, so I'm not concerned about Corey. It'll be fine. He's gonna get his hits, his home runs. We're not worried about him, but again, it's always good to make good hard contact for anybody that’s trying to find that groove that they normally are in.”

Rookies not hitting their stride

The Rangers’ superstar rookie duo of Evan Carter and Wyatt Langford are no doubt holding their own at the big league level -- and Carter proved he could do that and more late last season -- but neither has quite broken out like they were expected to.

Carter is hitting just .213, though he has five homers and a .765 OPS. Langford, on the other hand, is hitting .245 with no homers, though he’s getting on base at a .324 clip.

The Rangers entrusted two spots in the middle of the lineup to guys under 22 years old. They no doubt earned the honors, both in the Minors and throughout Spring Training, but in order for the club to succeed down the stretch, both Carter and Langford will need to take over the ballgame consistently.

“So much is made out of how you’re doing at the beginning of the season, so there’s a lot of tension on them,” Bochy said. “To have them put together a couple of nice games [this homestand], I think it was big for them, but for us, too. So hopefully this is what will trigger them to get back on track to where they're going to be this year.”

Clutch hitting

This homestand, has seen two losses to the Mariners and one against the Reds, the Rangers have gone 5-for-28 with runners in scoring position. That includes two separate 0-for-5 nights in a shutout loss to Seattle and Friday night’s win over Cincy.

Wendzel hit his first career homer in the loss on Saturday, a two-run shot in the ninth inning. Seager followed with a solo home run, which means seven of the Rangers’ last eight homers have been solo homers, truly illustrating the club’s lack of big hits with runners in base over the last week.

The offense hasn’t really been alarming, even if it feels like it at times. Texas ranks 12th in MLB in OPS (.717), ninth in batting average (.249) and seventh in homers (30). All that it takes is putting it all together.

“All we can do is look forward and continue to improve,” Semien said. “Obviously, Corey and I want to set the table for the hot hitters in the middle. We have hot hitters in the middle of the lineup. When we get on base and produce like we know we can, we'll be rolling.”