Rangers can't get everything working at once

NEW YORK -- Rangers starting pitcher Andrew Heaney stood in front of his locker in the visitors’ clubhouse at Yankee Stadium and gave an honest assessment of what he thought of his day.

Heaney allowed four runs (three earned) in 4 2/3 innings in the Rangers’ 8-7 loss to the Yankees on Sunday afternoon. It was far from a perfect day for both him and the club, which fought back late before ultimately losing. But there are no silver linings to be found here.

“We lost,” Heaney said.

That was that.

This three-game set in the Bronx felt like the best illustration of the Rangers’ entire season. From an inconsistent offense to another potential pitcher injury and a few defensive miscues -- both official and unofficial errors -- it was easy to see why Texas is in the position it’s currently at in the standings.

The Rangers and Yankees split the doubleheader on Saturday after a rainout the previous day. Texas was shut out, 8-0, in Game 1 before bouncing back for a big 9-4 win in Game 2. Ace Nathan Eovaldi left Game 1 with right side tightness that resulted in his return to Arlington to get it checked by team physician Dr. Keith Meister.

All things considered, it could have been much worse.

“A lot of good things happened there, and that's more our baseball,” manager Bruce Bochy said after Game 2 on Saturday. “It has been frustrating because we haven’t clicked offensively.”

The series finale on Sunday didn’t inspire much confidence that the team from Game 2 would stick around.

It felt off from the beginning for Texas. For a few short seconds, it felt like the Rangers could get some early scoring going for the first time in forever. But Corey Seager was thrown out in the first inning as he tried to stretch a single into a double, and Texas stranded Marcus Semien's two-out walk to open the game.

In the bottom of the first inning, a throwing error on third baseman Josh Jung allowed Alex Verdugo as the leadoff batter to reach base. Verdugo came around to score the first run of the game, and the Yankees continued to add on throughout the day.

But the Rangers once again struggled against the opposition's starting pitcher, which on Sunday was Marcus Stroman. Texas scored just one run in five-plus innings off the right-hander, who has struggled throughout the past month.

“We'd love to get some runs early and play with the lead,” Bochy said. “It's a lot easier to do that than coming from behind. It's a little bit of a rut that we're in. We've talked about it. The starters have been pretty tough on us the first five innings. If we had a silver bullet or if we could do something [to change that] we definitely would do it.”

The Rangers ultimately battled back, and they got within one run after home runs from Nathaniel Lowe and Carson Kelly in the eighth inning and a two-out rally in the ninth. But they were unable to deal a final blow before leaving the Bronx.

“That's what refreshed us,” Bochy said. “They kept going. Tough game with the way it was going. We got down and kept battling back, but we couldn't stop them. They kept adding on, but we kept adding on. We had the winning run on. That's what makes it tough. As hard as they fought, you'd like to come away with a win there.”

The Rangers have now lost each of their past five series, matching their longest such streak of the season (May 10-26). They haven’t won back-to-back games since a five-game streak from July 21-25.

After the Astros swept the Red Sox this weekend, the Rangers are 7 1/2 games back from the AL West lead. They’re not mathematically out of any running, not just yet. But the gap is getting bigger and bigger to have to overcome.

“I don't even think about that,” Bochy said. “You keep fighting until you're not in it. And we don't feel like that right now. This was a tough one, no getting around it, but now the bats are starting to come alive. You would like to see it happen earlier in the game, but it's good to see some life going with these guys, especially late in the game.”