The Texas Rangers are in the postseason once more. This is the team’s first postseason trip since 2016 and its eighth overall. They will take on Tampa Bay in the wild-card round. The previous time Texas participated in this round of play was against the Baltimore Orioles in 2012. That season, they participated in the inaugural AL Wild Card game. There won’t be much separating these sides in this series, so it will be competitive.

With 99 wins this season and a second-place finish in the American League East behind the Baltimore Orioles, Tampa Bay enters the series as the underdog. Tampa and the Texas Rangers have experienced comparable journeys. Throughout the season, they have suffered with a number of injuries, the majority of which have been to pitchers. They handled the widely publicized story from August about Wander Franco’s administrative leave. However, they persisted in playing a steady brand of baseball during the regular season. Tampa Bay is a team with a strong starting pitching staff and an excellent offense. Similar to Texas, Tampa has also struggled with an unreliable bullpen.

Texas lost the division on the last day of the regular season despite winning 90 games overall going into this series. They are back in the playoffs after winning 68 games in 2022 and 60 games in 2021. They also had to endure a number of injuries sustained throughout the regular season. This season, Corey Seager, Josh Jung, Nathan Eovaldi, Max Scherzer, Jon Gray, and Jacob deGrom have all missed a lot of time due to injury. Texas persevered and is currently back in the postseason.

Despite what their records indicate, there is not much separating these two squads. In most criteria, Texas and Tampa Bay rank third and fourth, respectively, in terms of offensive efficiency. With respect to ERA, the starting rotations rank fifth and seventh in baseball. Texas is ranked 24th, while Tampa is ranked 11th in their bullpen. Texas has 33 blown saves, while Tampa has 31. These four games, in my opinion, will ultimately decide who prevails in this series.