Playing in a weird setting, the Rangers got a little weird for series-opening win vs. A’s (2025)

WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The Texas Rangers played Tuesday’s big league game in a minor league stadium.

The visitor’s clubhouse is tucked away in center field, and it forced manager Bruce Bochy to strut back and forth across the field during batting practice to reach his dugout. The home team doesn’t even have a first name and their “9-time world champions” banner in center field is as close as they’ve come to decorating their temporary home.

Things are, uh, a bit weird in Sacramento.

So, the Rangers thought, let’s get weird.

Apologies. Weird is judgmental. Let’s try the phrase different instead. It’s reached a point that these Rangers — who’ve managed to claim the American League West’s best record despite a lineup that’s done anything but meet the measure of its expectations — would be grateful for something different.

“You keep doing what you’re doing,” Bochy said, “you keep getting what you’re getting.”

On Tuesday, against the Athletics at Sutter Health Park, the Rangers stopped what they’ve been doing and changed what they got when an entirely reinvented lineup slugged its way to a 8-5 series-opening win. They hit a season-best four home runs to score a season-high eight runs.

They got there because they were, well, different.

The Rangers ran out an entirely different batting order than the archetype they’ve used this season to do so. The revised, restructured and reimagined lineup went as follows Tuesday night: center fielder Josh Smith, left fielder Wyatt Langford, shortstop Corey Seager, right fielder Adolis García, second baseman Marcus Semien, designated hitter Joc Pederson, third baseman Josh Jung, first baseman Jake Burger and catcher Kyle Higashioka.

It’s the most drastic shakeup to the batting order during Bochy’s tenure as manager. Tuesday’s lineup yielded wholesale changes because the Rangers were in need of a Costco-sized shakeup. They began play Tuesday against the Athletics at Sutter Health Park with the fewest runs scored (69), the sixth-worst batting average (.222) and the sixth-worst OPS (.645) in baseball.

“I mean, I don’t think it’s a secret that we haven’t been doing very good,” Langford said. “So, why not? Why not change it up? I don’t think it’s going to hurt.”

Bochy wanted to wait for Langford to return from his two-week oblique-induced absence before he made a significant change to the lineup. Langford was activated Sunday vs. the Los Angeles Dodgers, hit fifth in the 1-0 loss and climbed two spots in the order Tuesday.

Smith (who has a team-best 1.027 OPS) and Langford (whose 1.011 OPS ranks second) have been Texas’ two most productive hitters through the season’s first three-and-a-half weeks. Bochy hit them first and second ahead of Seager, who hasn’t started anywhere but the two-hole since the 2023 season, in an effort to give the All-Star shortstop some runners on base to drive in.

The two combined to hit 4 for 8 with a solo home run and a walk each. Langford hit a solo home run, his fifth of the season and first since he returned from the injured list, in the third inning vs. A’s starter Osvaldo Bido to give the Rangers a 3-0 lead. Smith took Bido deep in the fifth to make it a 4-2 game. Both got on base as part of the Rangers’ two-run first inning, too, and helped the Rangers execute their first multiple-run opening frame since April 5. They’ve had a .598 OPS — the eighth-worst leaguewide — in first innings since then.

“It worked well, didn’t it?” Bochy said. “That first inning went exactly how we wanted it to go.”

Semien, whose .401 OPS is the worst among all qualified hitters leaguewide, has not yet been able to do that on a consistent basis this season. He’s batted fifth in a game just twice as a major leaguer and hasn’t since he was with the Toronto Blue Jays during the 2021 season. He’s hit leadoff in 449 of the 503 games that he’s played as a Ranger but has only hit elsewhere in the lineup 13 times during Bochy’s tenure as manager.

“I don’t have any say right now,” Semien said before Tuesday’s with a smile. “Until I start getting back to what I do, I have no say. That’s where I’m at.”

Bochy hit Semien fifth Tuesday because he “has a lot of experience driving in runs.” Looked like it, too, against the Athletics. He drove in the Rangers’ second run of the first inning with a sacrifice fly that scored Seager and, in the fifth inning, launched a three-run home run off of a Bido sinker that cracked the game open and gave Texas a five-run lead.

It was just Semien’s third extra base hit of the month and his first home run since April 5. It was also continued proof that Semien has swung the bat better of late, a belief both he and his manager share. He hit two balls 100 mph or harder and drew a walk in Sunday’s loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers and his home run vs. Bido left the bat at 103 mph.

“We all hit well in the minors,” said Semien, who finished 2 for 3 with a walk. “So let’s just pretend it’s the minors. That’s how we all got here, maybe that’s why.”

Bochy said they’ll “see what happens” in regards to whether this revised lineup is a permanent change or a temporary trial run. He said postgame that he was “hoping to keep this lineup like this for a while” but may need to make further tweaks after Seager left Tuesday’s game with hamstring tightness. He didn’t rule out Semien’s return to the top of the order at some point either.

“But sometimes you change things, you change things up,” Bochy said. “That’s what you do.”

It’s a start.

Now they’ll wait to see if it can become a jumpstart.

“You’ve still got to go out there, perform, hit, do all the same things,” Smith said. “I think we just have to — one through nine — put better at-bats together. Not everybody is going to have their best game every day, but if we can get it out of a couple of guys in different situations, it’s helpful.”

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