Eighty wins and eighty-one losses. That was where both Texas clubs began the final day. By Sunday evening, Houston had added a nine-run shutout and Texas had added a two-run defeat. A shared starting point had produced very different finishes.
The Astros beat the Athletics 9-0 and ended 81-81, first in the American League West. The Rangers lost 6-4 to the Minnesota Twins at Target Field and finished 80-82, eliminated from the postseason. The distance in the standings was one game. The contrast between the final performances was considerably larger.
Houston collected 12 hits and eight walks. It scored four runs in the third inning, then added two in the sixth, two in the seventh and one in the eighth. Its pitchers allowed five hits and no runs.
Houston was facing an Athletics club that finished 64-98, a limit on how much that rout proves. Whatever else can be said about winning a division with a .500 record, the Astros supplied a complete final-day performance.
Texas had enough power to keep its score respectable, but little of that continuity. Danny Jansen’s third-inning homer tied the game 1-1. Elias Díaz homered in the eighth, and Corey Seager hit a two-run shot in the ninth. Those three swings produced every Rangers run. The lineup finished with six hits and no walks.
The difference was apparent before the last inning. Against Minnesota’s Dean Kremer, Texas managed three hits and one run in seven innings. Kremer walked nobody and needed 74 pitches. The Rangers could not make him work through repeated baserunners, much less force an early trip to the Twins’ bullpen.
Minnesota had help constructing its lead. Luke Keaschall walked in the first, reached on a hit batter in the third and walked again in the fifth. He scored all three times. Josh Bell’s sacrifice fly and two-run homer brought him home twice; Kody Clemens supplied the single that scored him in the fifth.
That fifth inning widened a 3-1 game into a 5-1 lead. Walker Jenkins singled, Keaschall walked and Kaelen Culpepper struck out. Walks to Bell and Ryan Jeffers followed, with Jeffers’s forcing Jenkins home. Clemens then singled against Jordan Montgomery to score Keaschall. The Twins were receiving the kind of repeated access to first base that the Rangers could not get for themselves.
Montgomery supplied the strongest case that Texas still had a chance to change the afternoon. He stranded the remaining runners and completed 2 2/3 innings without a run charged to him. Minnesota did not score again until Royce Lewis homered in the eighth. There was time for Texas to do more than wait for its next ball to clear the fence.
The Rangers finally put a runner in front of one of those swings in the ninth. Brandon Nimmo singled, Wyatt Langford popped out and Seager homered. With the deficit reduced to two, Jake Burger struck out and Ezequiel Duran flied out. The final push ended without the tying run coming to the plate.