Why are the 2024 Texas Rangers struggling to score with the bases loaded?

HOUSTON — There were 2,383 major league at-bats this season in which the bases were loaded throughout baseball before the start of the game Saturday. The league batting average in those instances was .255. The on-base percentage was .295. Exactly 1,637 runs were driven in during those instances and a total of 1,757 runs were scored.

The Texas Rangers and Houston Astros loaded the bases five times in the first team’s 2-1 overtime victory Saturday at Minute Maid Park. The batting average and on-base percentage in each of the five chances were .000. No runs were batted in. No runs were scored.

On one hand, you have to acknowledge the courage of playoff hero Nathan Eovaldi. On the other, you have to acknowledge the Rangers’ continued struggles in these situations. Let’s start with the one that favored Texas.

Eovaldi, who pitched seven innings of one-run ball, had eight hits and struck out seven, left the bases loaded twice in a game that was tied both times. In the first inning, the Astros hit four straight singles (one of which tied the game) to load the bases with one out.

The 34-year-old right-hander retired Jeremy Peña on eight pitches for the first out. The call was initially ruled a catcher’s interference on Jonah Heim, which would have sent Peña to first base and scored Yordan Alvarez from third, but the call was overturned on review. Eovaldi then threw two pitches — a fastball for a ball, then his nasty splitter in the bottom corner of the strike zone — to prompt Houston’s Jake Meyers to hit a hit to third baseman Josh Smith that ended the inning.

Eovaldi loaded the bases again in the bottom of the sixth after Yainer Diaz singled, Jon Singleton singled and an errant fastball hit Peña with one out. Eovaldi, after a visit to the mound by director of pitching strategy Dave Bush, needed only a pinch hit to induce a bottom-of-the-inning double from Meyers that kept the game tied.

“He continues to impress me,” Rangers manager Bruce Bochy said. “He’s got such composure on the pitch. He’s got that ability, as we’ve said many times, to step up when he needs to.”

On numerous occasions, including in Game 2 of last year’s ALC Championship Series at Minute Maid Park, when Eovaldi worked a bases-loaded, no-out situation in the fifth inning of the Rangers’ 5-4 victory. Or in Game 5 of the World Series against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Chase Field, when he tiptoed through traffic and left nine runners on base in a 5-0 victory that clinched the title.

That’s what he does. The problem: Wasting chances with the bases loaded is, apparently, what the Rangers’ lineup does. They did it three times in Saturday’s win: once in the sixth, when first baseman Nathaniel Lowe bounced to first base to end the inning; again in the seventh, when Smith was retired on seven pitches to end it; and again in the eighth, when center fielder Leody Taveras struck out to end it.

The Rangers are hitting just .216 with the bases loaded this season. Only four other teams in the league rank lower than them. Texas had just three hits in regulation — including Marcus Semien’s leadoff home run — before Lowe drove in the winning run in the top of the 10th inning.

“Everybody wants to score every time a runner is in scoring position,” Lowe said. “Base runners want to score, hitters want to score, pitchers want runs to feel comfortable and take the lead. It’s just one of those things, we didn’t really get it done today until we got it done at the end.”

Twitter: @McFarland_Shawn

Find more Rangers coverage in The Dallas Morning News here.

Click or tap here to sign up to our Rangers newsletter.