Jacob deGrom’s gem in Detroit epitomizes Rangers’ upside-down season to this point

DETROIT — This will sum up everything you need to know about the Rangers’ upside-down season to this point, which on Saturday reached the one-quarter mark.

Against the team sporting the best record in the American League, Jacob deGrom looked more like Jacob deGrom than at any point since his 2023 elbow surgery. He had his best fastball velocity of the year, his filthiest slider and even a little bit of a sneer. He struck out six batters in a row at one point and had 10 by the end of the fourth. When umpire Andy Fletcher missed a pair of calls on his final batter of the night, leading to deGrom’s exit, the pitcher even offered a little bit of feedback.

And you know what? It was only the second-biggest development of the day.

In a 10-3 win over Detroit, the Rangers’ offense looked like it was supposed to look. They walked and they slugged, though it actually started the other way around. That, as you may be aware, has been the exception this season. It was only the seventh time they’d scored more than five runs in a game. They hit a season-high five home runs. They walked six times. They turned walks into runs with more walks and — will you look at that — a productive out.

They put themselves in position to both win a series and leave their first week after an offensive shake-up with a .500 road trip against two pretty good teams. When they get home late Sunday, they might just find their whole expected offense all together for the first time all season. With Colorado and the worst record in baseball coming to Arlington next week, there might be a chance at honest-to-goodness momentum.

And, on top of everything else, they have a chance to start changing the narrative of the first quarter of the season in which the offense either looked out of sync or out of touch. At 40 games, the “slow start” explanation fades into “well, this might be who they are.”

“You get to this point and you get a fairly accurate picture,” manager Bruce Bochy said before the game, maintaining that the offense isn’t actually what it had been. “That’s why we’re trying to tweak some things and change things. This is when you start to get a good feel for who the club is, the culture, all of that. It doesn’t mean it can’t change, but you have a pretty good idea.

“But I’ll say this: This isn’t what they are. Granted, it’s been a while. But we got some guys hitting what they’re not going to hit. I can promise you, [Joc] Pederson is not going to hit what he’s hitting. Marcus [Semien] is not going to hit what he’s hitting. You have to keep believing.”

For a change, the Rangers backed up his words. To that point, it wasn’t so much that Josh Smith homered to lead off the game or that Corey Seager homered in his first at-bat after missing a pair of games. Then Seager doubled and homered again. Nice. But they’ve been the two most consistent hitters this season.

Rather, it was that Pederson hit a two-run homer in the third inning and walked to help advance a run-scoring opportunity the next inning and Semien took a pair of walks, including one that followed Pederson’s in the fourth, then bounced a ball up the middle for an RBI in the ninth.

It was that Evan Carter, who has spent the first month of the season in the minors rather than in center field, hit his first homer of the season in the second inning. It left the bat at 111 mph. It’s the hardest ball he’s hit in the majors, including that magical 2023 playoff run.

It was that Wyatt Langford, in a funk this week, recovered from a three-strikeout game against Tarik Skubal to take three walks on Saturday. And scored on each. On the last one, in the ninth inning of an already-decided game, he hustled to second to beat the throw on a fielder’s choice (later changed to a hit), then stole third and scored on Semien’s single.

It was Adolis García driving in two runs without a hit. His sacrifice fly in the fifth drove home Seager, who’d moved to third after his double thanks to consecutive walks.

“Wyatt scored three runs without a hit, Adolís drove in two without a hit,” Bochy said. “There were a lot of productive outs. There were a lot of good things out there.”

It brought the clubhouse to life in a way that’s not been very visible in this first stretch of the season. It brought out the snark in Pederson and it brought out Seager’s literary soul.

“It really takes the pressure off,” Pederson said and then, when asked about a difference in his approach over the week added “Yeah, I’m hitting balls how I usually hit: hard. So that feels good.”

Said Seager about the last week: “You have to find a little light in the dark times. I feel like the light is starting to peak through. And we’re hoping more light is going to open up.”

Corey, we didn’t know you had that in you.

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