Four in a row is nice. Even nicer is tying the Astros for first place with the hope of knocking them out of the playoffs.

After 152 games, with just ten left in the season, the Rangers are finally back to .500 and finally tied with the Astros for first in the remedial A.L. West.

The Astros are reeling. They fired their general manager. Their manager has been told he’s not coming back. It’s all one big lame duck show in Houston. No tears are being shed, by the way.

The Rangers have their own basket of problems, to be sure. But they are on the upswing, having just won their fourth game in a row and the first two in their series against the Red Sox.

So, right now, the final ten games are a shootout. Because the Astros own the tiebreaker over the Rangers, Texas has to win one more game than the Astros from here on out. They have to do it while navigating starts from MacKenzie Gore and Kumar Rocker.

The next ten days will be all about scoreboard watching, inning by inning, even pitch by pitch. With two mediocre teams fighting it out, it might not be the greatest baseball ever played, but meaningful games in September is all any fan can ask for. Rangers fans have giving up asking for this team to be above .500. Some pipe dreams are just too hard to fathom.

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