Where is the sense of urgency? The Rangers don’t have a whole lot more left in the season to start trying to win games. 

After finally winning a game to break an ill-timed four-game losing streak, the Rangers pretty much absolutely had to win yesterday. Losing two out of three to Sacramento after losing three out of four to Los Angeles would have been soul crushing. Losing the series to the Angels was bad enough. 

Every loss makes their wildcard chances dimmer and dimmer.

So, against that backdrop, Corey Seager was given the day off Sunday. Yes, he recently returned from a long stay on the Injured List, and the Rangers want to do everything they can to keep him healthy for the final 38 games because this is the worst season in American League history and a team probably won’t even have to finish above .500 to make the final wildcard spot in playoffs—but the Rangers need every weapon in their arsenal to be that best bad team that gets that final wildcard spot. 

Not having their superstar out there in a critical game wasn’t a good look. Even the Rangers TV announcers acknowledged that. Of course, they are paid by the team so they cannot draw any conclusion other than a positive one. And their conclusion was that if the Rangers think Seager needed a day off, who are the rest of us to question it?

Besides, we have no way of knowing how many vacation days he gets per season, and whether he still has any left, or whether his vacation days roll over from year to year. It might be a case of him having to take his vacation days now or risk losing them. Of course, as a member of the Texas Rangers, he gets to take every October off automatically. Then, of course, there’s the offseason, but that’s not for another few months, and a player cannot be expected to continue working all the way through the season to get to the offseason. 

So, Corey Seager got a badly needed off day while his team lost to the Athletics, 5-2, to drop two of three to the last-place Athletics, after losing three of four to what had been the last-place Angels until beating the Rangers three out of four.

So, now, the Rangers come home for another critical series, this one against the best offense in baseball belonging to the Washington Nationals. 

The Rangers cannot beat the teams they are supposed to beat. But, the good news is, they are consistent. They cannot beat the teams they aren’t supposed to beat either.

Good thing for Seager is, they have an off day today. So, he is able to stretch his PTO and extra day. If he calls in sick (wink, wink) on Tuesday, he can make it a three-day weekend, maybe take in a museum or a concert or hit the beach. 

And we could all use a three-day weekend right about now.

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