ARLINGTON, Texas --The fans of the Texas Rangers who were wondering when the club would hit rock bottom now have their answer.
Wednesday's 8-4 loss to Houston -- which completed just the second-ever series sweep for the Astros over the Rangers â officially put Texas at the bottom.
The spiraling Rangers now have the worst winning percentage in all of baseball. The loss dropped the Rangers to 38-53, percentage points behind the Astros for the cellar in the American League West and just behind the Arizona Diamondbacks in the National League.
It's certainly a tough pill to swallow in a clubhouse that had such high expectations before an injury and inconsistency-plagued season began.
"That's the last thing we want to think about right now," Texas outfielder Alex Rios said of the team's record. "We don't want to think about records. We don't want to think about who is behind, who is ahead. I've said this many times we just have to play the game and try to enjoy it. At this point there's so much you can do and you just have to play."
An awful start by Yu Darvish completed the meteoric drop for Texas, which has now lost 18 of 21 games and is 15 games under .500 for the first time since Aug. 25, 2007.
The Texas ace and All-Star allowed a season high six earned runs to a Houston team that he's dominated in his Rangers' career. Darvish had allowed 13 earned runs in 51 innings against Houston in his first seven starts but was tagged for a season-high 10 hits and looked anything but All-Star caliber.
Darvish (8-5) has now allowed at least four earned runs in four of his last five starts and has a 5.40 ERA in that span. The Rangers spotted Darvish a first-inning run but he coughed up two in the second. Texas countered with three runs in the bottom of the second but Darvish couldn't make that hold up.
He allowed a run in the third, another in the fifth and two more in the sixth as a two-run double from Carlos Corporan broke a 4-4 tie and paved the way for last place.
"He has those types of days but he usually rights it," Texas manager Ron Washington said. "Usually when he puts runs on the board for Yu he doesn't turn around and give them right back."
His rough night ended a dreadful series in which the Rangers allowed 28 runs to a Houston team that had lost seven-consecutive games before this series and came into the finale hitting just .238 â the worst mark in the AL.
Darvish struck out eight and didn't walk a batter but he needed 109 pitches to get through six innings against a Houston team that has gotten right against its Silver Boot foes.
"I think their approach hasn't changed much, but I think individually they're playing good baseball and in a lot of key situations they're hitting the ball."
The Rangers hit the ball early against Houston's Dallas Keuchel but didn't score after the second inning despite an 11-hit night.
Add the bad Darvish start, a bad offensive finish and a bad stretch of play together and you get a team that's technically the worst in baseball.
"It is what it is," Darvish said of the record.
What it is certainly isn't what it was supposed to be.
"I was not expecting this at all," said Rios. "At the beginning of spring we had a great team coming into the season and you expect good things to happen. You don't expect the kind of bizarre things that happened to happen. It's just a crazy season. This is a season that I believe we're all going to remember in a bad way. There's so much you can say and talk about."
