DETROIT -- The Rangers have made some of the biggest additions in baseball in recent years, adding the trio of Corey Seager, Marcus Semien and Jon Gray following the 2021 season and another trio of starting pitchers in Jacob deGrom, Nathan Eovaldi and Andrew Heaney following ‘22.

With frontline players across the diamond, what Texas is doing right now shouldn’t be a shock. Yet in a division with the defending World Series champion Houston Astros, the young Seattle Mariners and two of the greatest players in the world in Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout, it’s also understandable why some would be skeptical.

But two months into this season, the Rangers have shown they are for real.

Despite a 3-2 loss to the Tigers on Wednesday afternoon at Comerica Park, the Rangers finished 6-3 on the three-city road trip, taking all three series from Pittsburgh, Baltimore and Detroit en route to a sparkling 18-9 record in May.

“It was great to see,” said manager Bruce Bochy. “Hitting the road like we did, and this trip was maybe the toughest of all the trips, with the day games after night games. We've traveled here from Baltimore to play a day game here on Memorial Day, and night game, and day game today. It was not an easy trip. To take the series in every city, that was really good baseball. I was proud of these guys that came out every day. It wasn't three easy teams that we played here on this trip.”

Texas’ 18-9 record in May marked the team's highest win percentage in any month since a 20-8 (.714) finish in June 2016. The club’s 35-20 record is Texas’ best mark ever through the first 55 games in a season, and the Rangers have been alone or tied atop the AL West for 60 of the season’s first 61 days, with April 8 marking the lone exception.

What is maybe even more impressive is that the Rangers spent most of the month on the road, playing only eight games at Globe Life Field.

“It was a good road trip -- a really good trip -- and a good month,” Bochy said. “I mean, we played on the road a lot this month. To have a trip like this, it was tough on the boys, so I'm proud of how they played. I knew it would be a grind of a month for the guys, and they handled it so well. They came out every day ready to go.”

After Dane Dunning tossed five innings against the Tigers on Wednesday, Rangers starters finished with a 14-3 record and a 3.16 ERA in May. Though Dunning gave up a season-high three earned runs in the loss, he has a 2.06 ERA, with most of his appearances coming as he filled the injured deGrom’s spot in the rotation.

The offense also continued to rake in the Detroit series, despite scoring just two runs in Wednesday’s loss. Four Texas hitters finished the month with at least 30 hits: Semien (37), Leody Taveras (35), Josh Jung (34) and Nathaniel Lowe (33).

“I think all the guys are doing great,” Dunning said. “Like everyone's kind of pulling from the same rope. [Nathan] Eovaldi, Andrew [Heaney], Jon [Gray], Martín [Pérez] -- they're all doing fantastic starting-wise, and then the bullpen is coming in to get the job done when they need to. Then the offense has just been electric this whole year. And it's not just the same guys, it's everyone coming in clutch moments, everyone's putting the ball in play when they need to and we're all working together as a team.”

There’s still a lot of baseball to be played, but just over one-third of the way through the 2023 season, the Rangers have put themselves in prime position to be considered one of the best teams in the American League.

Bochy certainly doesn’t doubt it.

“Well, obviously I think they're really good, I’ve told them that,” Bochy said after securing the series win on Tuesday. “It's a great lineup that gets contributions from everybody up and down. They throw out great at-bats. And we have a really solid rotation. I've said this so many times that everyone that goes out there, we have so much confidence that they're going to help us or give us the chance to win the ballgame. Now, you're going to have guys that have hiccups like what happened [today], but the offense has the ability to put up runs too, and slug it with somebody.”