Every Texas Rangers fan knows that the team’s history has yet to be the most successful thing to ever come to Major League Baseball. Despite the team’s bright future, there are still plenty of painful moments to pick from.
However, what if those moments of agony played out a little bit differently? Today we’ll look at which five games I would change the outcome to throughout Rangers’ history.
#1. 2011 World Series Game 6 – I’m sure that when all of you read the title of this article, your first thought was Wednesday, October 26th, 2011. Game six of the 2011 World Series would be the first game of the Rangers’ history that I would want to change the outcome of. Quite frankly the Rangers had multiple chances to win that game after having a lead in both the 9th and extra innings on that cold St. Louis Night. At the end of the day, we all know that if Nelson Cruz had caught that deep fly ball off the bat of David Freese that the Texas Rangers would have a World Series Championship.
#2 2015 ALDS Game 5 vs the Toronto Blue Jays – When you think of Game 5 of the 2015 ALDS you think of the Jose Bautista bat flip off Sam Dyson and the two errors from Elvis Andrus which lead to the 7th inning collapse that cost the Rangers the game. Texas had a 3-1 lead going into that 7th inning before the major giveaway. The Rangers also had a 2-0 lead in that series before losing three straight games and the series. If the Rangers would have won they would have taken on the eventual World Series Champion Kansas City Royals in the ALCS.
#3 – 2012 Game 162 vs the Oakland A’s – Game 162 of the 2012 season was just about the highest stakes regular season baseball game that you could possibly have. The Rangers squared off with the Oakland A’s where the winner would win the AL West division title and the loser would play in the newly installed Wild Card game. Texas would jump out to a 5-1 lead in the 3rd inning but would watch that lead quickly disintegrate as they went on to lose that game by a score of 5-12 giving the A’s the western division title. The Rangers would go on to play the Baltimore Orioles in the AL Wild Card Game where they would lose by a score of 5-1.
#4 – 2013 Game 163 vs the Tampa Bay Rays – I’m really curious to see if Rangers fans agree with me on this one because I think for me this game was more sentimental because of the fact that the 2013 Rangers were the first team that I truly fell in love with. Game 163 was in Arlington at Globe Life Park with the winner advancing to the AL Wild Card game to face the Clevland Indians. A young Martin Perez got the start for the Rangers and he was just flat-out outdueled by David Price in this game as the Rangers would never lead and go on to lose by a score of 5-2.
#5. April 2nd, 2013 vs the Houston Astros – For the first time on this list we have a game that the Rangers actually won, in fact, they dominated winning by a score of 7-0. The reason I’d want to change this game is that Yu Darvish hadn’t allowed a hit through 9 2/3rds innings. That would change when Marwin Gonzalez singled up the middle to break up the no-hit bid. One more out on that early April evening in Houston and the Rangers would have had their 6th franchise no-hitter.
I know a lot of these games are from recent memory because of the fact that I am so young but let me know which games I may have missed and which games you guys would add!