Will the Texas Rangers and Seattle Mariners regret not burying the struggling Houston Astros?

The Texas Rangers are atop the American League West thanks to a recent surge that has seen the defending World Series champions win eight of their last 11 games through Thursday.

This increase propelled the Rangers (22-17) ahead of the Seattle Mariners (20-17) in the division. They are the only two clubs with a winning record in the AL West.

The other three clubs – the Houston Astros, Los Angeles Angels and Oakland Athletics – are on the wrong side of .500. Is this where they will stay? Is the West destined to be a two-team race between the Rangers and Mariners?

Well, MLB.com doesn’t see much enthusiasm in the West. In a recent ranking of division races, the West came in fourth out of six divisions in terms of storylines.

The difficulties of the Rangers’ main rival are the main reason for this.

This division was shaken up by the fall of the Astros at the start of the season. This is the team that has won six of the last seven division titles (the only one it didn’t win being the truncated 2020 season). The Astros have gone 11 games under .500 – something they hadn’t experienced before this season since May 22, 2016 – and look completely lost.

So how did this division react to the Astros, finally leaving the door wide open for them? It’s full of teams who seem awfully reluctant to go through it. The Angels, now without Mike Trout, have fallen behind the Astros. The A’s have been a great story, but were still hitting just .215 as a team entering Tuesday and have the 25th-best rotation ERA (4.53) in the Majors, so the fun seems unlikely to last.

That leaves the Rangers and Mariners, who have played well enough recently to create some distance between themselves and the .500 mark, but who have hardly been world beaters. The Rangers are short on pitchers, and even though the Mariners have plenty, their offense is hitting .222 and Julio Rodríguez still hasn’t started. It’s possible that the rest of the AL West regrets not burying the Astros when they had the chance.

– MLB.com

The Rangers know this all too well after Houston surged late last season to win the West crown via a tiebreaker. Texas opens a three-game series against the Colorado Rockies starting Friday night.

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