'Now or never': Bruce Bochy's Texas Rangers in danger zone for World Series defense

BALTIMORE – If anybody should have the answer, it’s Bruce Bochy.

The question: Why has it become virtually impossible for a team to repeat as World Series champions?

Bochy, the 69-year-old manager of the Texas Rangers, is one of just three men – Walter Alston and Joe Torre are the others – to win four World Series titles in the last 66 years. Torre’s New York Yankees proved pretty good at doing it again – winning four in a five-year span, including a threepeat.

Yet nobody’s gone back-to-back since the Yankees won their third in a row in 2000. And while the Rangers’ bid to defend their title isn’t dead yet, the likelihood they join the 22 teams preceding them in falling short grows likelier.

After salvaging the last game of a road trip after losing the first six with a victory Sunday night at Camden Yards, the Rangers are 38-46, eight games back and in third place in the American League West. Of greater import in this expanded-playoff era, Texas is tied for the 11^th-best record in the AL, eight games out of wild card position.

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Yet forget the for now meaningless playoff ramifications. Of greater concern is that the Rangers are not a particularly good team right now, a disease striking almost every defending champion ever since Mariano Rivera closed out the New York Mets at Shea Stadium in 2000.

Bochy piloted the San Francisco Giants to three World Series titles a decade ago, the team earning renown for its odd-year failings in 2011, 2013 and 2015 that followed the glory of winning rings in 2010, 2012 and 2014.

A new decade, a new league and a new franchise has not provided the future Hall of Fame manager any further clarity. If nothing else, it demonstrates just how daunting the task completed really was.

“It shows you how difficult it is to do the first time,” Bochy said Sunday night. “A lot has to go right. Guys have to have their normal years. A surprise or two. A little luck involved – that doesn’t hurt.

“It’s just really, really difficult. Some really good teams in the league. It makes you appreciate what we did last year even more. Our struggles now – it’s pretty impressive what this club did.

“This club will keep fighting. We’ll power our way through this. I really think we’re going to come out of this in a really good way.”

For now, the Rangers are undeniably in a bad way.

Out of the woods?

Bochy’s mood was at least lightened by the fact his franchise shortstop isn’t out for a couple of months. Corey Seager, the reigning World Series MVP, took a pitch off his left wrist Saturday night, tumbled to the dirt in pain and almost immediately headed down the tunnel.

X-rays were negative, but Seager will undergo an MRI and other tests when the team returns to Texas.

“It doesn’t mean you’re out of the woods, yet,” Bochy cautioned.

Particularly when the Rangers’ greater impetus involves a much larger dig out of the hole they created.

They’ve lost 16 of their last 25 games, a funk now spanning 64 games in which they’ve posted a 27-37 record. It’s an extended spell of poor play and a half-season’s worth of data has plenty of ugly entry points.

Most notably, a club that mashed its way to a .789 OPS in 2023, ranking third in the major leagues, is floundering along at .684, good for 19^th. Paired with a .238 batting average, also well league average, the club has seen drop-offs from almost every regular, form All-Stars Marcus Semien and Seager on down the line.

“It’s no secret that we’re going through it right now,” says catcher Jonah Heim, one of six Rangers All-Stars last year, when he finished with 18 homers and a .755 OPS. This year, he’s hit seven homers with a .633 OPS.

“We’ve got three months to figure it out.”

Sometimes, clarity on The Year After doesn’t come until several seasons after the fact.

'It's a fog'

Orioles manager Brandon Hyde was the Chicago Cubs’ first-base coach when they broke a 108-year drought and won the 2016 World Series. That club was particularly young and spritely, but even youth has its limits.

The 2016 Cubs were 51-30 at the halfway point; a year later, they were a game under .500 at the same juncture. The 2017 club traded for lefty Jose Quintana in July and found a second-half groove, defending their NL Central title before falling in the NLCS to the Dodgers.

Still, it’s tough to fight human nature.

“I don’t want to say our guys were going through the motions,” says Hyde. “But you play such intense games where it’s the Super Bowl, every night, for a month. In April, on a Tuesday night somewhere, sometimes it doesn’t feel the same. I know fans have a hard time understanding.

“But that’s how you feel a little bit. And when you play in the postseason for a month, it is literally a Super Bowl game every night for a month.

“And then if you win, it’s a fog for the offseason. Heck, I was just coaching first. But it felt like the players needed to pick it up. And they did in the second half.”

Fortunately, the Rangers will get tangible boosts in addition to any psychological ones. Josh Jung, their 2023 All-Star third baseman, is nearing a return from a wrist fracture. Veteran starters Jacob deGrom and Tyler Mahle, both recovering from elbow reconstruction, should be back in the second half.

That should help a rotation that blew up on this most recent road trip, losing six consecutive games before Andrew Heaney dominated the Orioles and rookie Wyatt Langford hit for the cycle to salvage the last of four games in Baltimore.

“It’s now or never for us,” says Heaney, “and I think we know that.”

'Things will go our way'

If nothing else, they’ll attack their climb with a group that’s experienced almost everything on the baseball spectrum. Three-time Cy Young Award winner Max Scherzer, Seager and pitchers Nathan Eovaldi and David Robertson all won World Series with other clubs.

Several current Rangers slogged through 102- and 94-loss seasons in 2021 and 2022. If nothing else, they know any state in baseball – good or bad – is temporary.

“It’s the best definition of baseball and playing 162 games,” says switch-hitting outfielder Robbie Grossman. “Last year, we were up 10 games and ended up not finishing it off in the regular season but got to the ultimate goal. Every year, the challenges, the ups and downs are something you kind of look forward to as a player.

“I think we got a great group here. This is one of the closest clubhouses I’ve been in my big league career. The veterans in here, the experience we have – it’s something else. The success we had last year and going forward this year – if guys lean on the veterans, things will go our way.”

They will be fighting history. Ten of the 22 champions since 2000 failed to make the playoffs the next season, three of those Bochy’s infamous odd-year Giants teams.

The dugout sage might be their finest asset going forward.

“Don’t count this group out,” says Bochy. “We had our struggles, our injuries, but they did such a great job bouncing back last year. It’s all about winning ballgames, now. It’s about pushing through it, powering through it.

“Nobody feels better about this club than I do.”