TORONTO _ In the end, the Rangers were a victim of their success.
The team with the best regular season record in the American League was unceremoniously swept out of the playoffs on Sunday night. Toronto, with Josh Donaldson scoring on a mad dash from second, eliminated the Rangers with a 7-6 win in 10 innings at the Rogers Centre, the same spot where the Rangers' season ended a year ago.
The Rangers became only the third team since 2000 to have the league's top regular-season record and not win a postseason game. The Los Angeles Angels in 2014 and the Chicago White Sox in 2000 suffered the same fate.
The best-record designation has become more of a burden than a reward.
From 2000-15, the club with the best record in its league had a better chance of being bounced in the division-series round than reaching the World Series.
In that span, the club with the best league in the league made eight trips to the World Series and won five times. Kansas City accomplished the feat last season.
The polar opposite happened more often.
A total of 16 clubs that had the best record for the regular season went out in the divisional round. St. Louis suffered that fate last season.
Like most teams with the top record, the Rangers did not have to take on a challenger during the home stretch.
They clinched the AL West title with eight games to play. They guaranteed home-field advantage with two games to play. That essentially meant the Rangers had five days off before opening this series. The break seemed to dull the club's edge.
"I don't know that," third baseman Adrian Beltre said. "We did have days off in between. But it's tough to tell. That's not an excuse."
Manager Jeff Banister, speaking beforehand, did not accept the theory that the layoff hurt his club.
"That's the easy point to look at," Banister said. "Ah-ha, those days off., it's tough.
"There comes a time when you've got to look at the other players performing, too. What it comes down to is those guys have performed well. They capitalized on our mistakes."
The Rangers started to wake up during the Game 2 loss on Friday.
The almost-comatose Rangers trailed 5-1 after six innings. In the next three innings, they put pressure on the Jays and had the lead or tying run on base in each inning.
Toronto manager John Gibbons gritted his teeth and used closer Roberto Osuna for the final five outs. That was the last thing Gibbons wanted to do. Osuna came out of the wild-card game on Tuesday because of "shoulder fatigue."
Banister admitted that in those final three innings, his club "found a little bit of rhythm with our offense."
That was the only sign of consistent offense by the Rangers for the series.
In the opener, the Rangers had only one at-bat with a runner in scoring position.
In Game 2, the Rangers were unable to get the vital hit. They went 2-for-18 with runners in scoring position. In playoff history, no team had ever had as many at-bats with runners in scoring position and as few hits.
The Rangers were 1-for-2 with runners in scoring position in this game. Mitch Moreland had the hit, a two-run double for a short-lived 6-5 lead in the sixth.
"The days off in-between, you have days off during the season and you have days down during the All-Star break," Banister said. "They understand how to handle themselves.
"Is it an advantage to keep playing? Possibly. But these guys don't go to their houses and draw the shades and flip the switch off and say the season is over."
It is now.
