This story was excerpted from Kennedi Landry¡¯s Rangers Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.??

ARLINGTON -- If you had to find a name for the Rangers¡¯ 2022 season, it would be something like ¡°The Curious Case of the One-Run Loss.¡±

After two more one-run losses for the Rangers this week in Seattle, the club is now 5-23 in one-run games this season, good for a .179 winning percentage. That¡¯s bad by itself, but it¡¯s even more glaring when you realize Texas is 38-30 (.558 winning percentage) in all other games this season.

The only other MLB team that comes close to the Rangers¡¯ record in one-run games is the Angels -- a team that already fired its manager and has been memed repeatedly on Twitter after every loss -- at 6-17 (.261). Over a 162-game season, the worst record in one-run games belongs to the 2021 D-backs at 10-31 (.244), which the Rangers could easily surpass if things keep going in this direction.

And maybe it's a little bit of karma for 2016, when the Rangers had the best record in baseball in one-run games at 36-11 (.766).

But honestly, what gives? The Rangers aren¡¯t a bad team, no matter what the winning percentage in one-run games may tell you. Many of these losses include blown leads or comebacks falling just short -- the worst of which came in a three-game sweep by the streaking Orioles on Fourth of July weekend. What is Texas missing to get over this one hump?

¡°There's a lot of little plays there that we have to make,¡± Rangers manager Chris Woodward said after the first of Texas¡¯ losses to Seattle this week. ¡°If we're going to win games, we've got to find a way to get it done. We had them on the ropes and just didn't have a big hit or a big at-bat. We're going to find a way to get them.¡±

It¡¯s easy to say, ¡°Get one more hit, strike out one more guy, take one more walk.¡± Woodward probably gets tired of saying it just as much as the fans have gotten tired of hearing it. But there¡¯s no running from the fact that seven of the Rangers¡¯ last 10 losses have been by two runs or fewer, including two to the last-place A¡¯s to open the second half.

No matter how close Woodward may feel the Rangers are, continuous one-run losses are no doubt demoralizing for an organization hoping to return to contention in the near future.

¡°We keep fighting no matter how bad it gets,¡± Woodward said. ¡°We are going to learn from this. ¡­ We keep getting in these situations and we're going to learn from them. We're going to bounce back. We're going to continue to grow from these things.¡±

The Rangers are going to learn from these close losses. They¡¯re going to fight to the end. But at some point, they can only hope the fight turns into wins.

For now, maybe this is just who Texas is -- hovering around .500 for much of the year, losing close contests and occasionally stealing one or two games from a contender.

¡°We're trying to obviously find a little bit of a streak, like a little bit of a run where we win six out of seven and everything comes together for an extended period of time,¡± Woodward said. ¡°You see the ups and downs with a really small margin for error.

¡°There's just a little bit of a back and forth. We play well enough to win one day and make one mistake or don't make the play, and then we lose. That's what a .500 team looks like. It¡¯s just kind of the ups and downs every day. We're trying to get above that, obviously. We just got to keep fighting.¡±