HOUSTON _ Nothing is working for the Rangers.
Not even the time-tested trick of the bench-clearing brouhaha with the Houston Astros.
The Rangers did go chest-to-chest with the Astros on Monday, just as they did at the start of their sprint to the AL West title in 2015. Houston _ older, wiser and better than it was two years ago _ simply brushed the Rangers off and answered with a big inning in a 6-2 win in the first meeting between the teams this season.
About the benches clearing: It took place in the sixth inning after Lance McCullers threw behind the back of Mike Napoli. Napoli had homered in his previous at-bat, so he took some exception. McCullers had watched two of his teammates get hit with pitches in the first two innings, so he wasn't exactly concerned with Napoli's complaints. The two jawed a second and they moved towards each other when the benches and bullpens emptied.
Manager Jeff Banister led the way for the Rangers. Banister had been in the middle of the scrum in July, 2015, poking his big index finger in the chest of Houston counterpart A.J. Hinch in that one. It seemed to ignite the Rangers, who have owned the Astros and the AL West ever since.
And Monday seemed to be a perfect jumping-off spot for such a moment. Houston third baseman Alex Bregman had tweeted a day earlier with a hashtag of BTSOOTR, which could be interpreted as "Beat The Bleep Out Of the Rangers." A photo of the tweet circulated through the Rangers clubhouse before the game.
Alas, the situation is far different than it was two years ago. Some of the Astros young players have matured and Houston has supplemented that group with veterans such as Brian McCann, Carlos Beltran and Josh Reddick.
The Rangers, meanwhile, aren't quite sure who they are at this moment.
All that is clear is that to this point, they aren't a particularly cohesive team. And all of that showed up again on Monday. Starter Andrew Cashner flirted with trouble all night and finally found a situation he couldn't escape in the seventh. The bullpen couldn't bail him out, either. The defense didn't help, making three errors, the team's second three-error game in the last three days.
And the offense, well, the offense may be the most disconcerting facet of the team at the moment. Without Adrian Beltre in the middle of the lineup, too many Rangers, it appears try to be filling his void on their own, instead of working to fill it as a group. What it's led to is big swings, regardless of pitch location, and some magnificent home runs. But lately, a ton of strikeouts. The Rangers struck out 12 times on Monday and have 43 over the last four games.
