Welcome to September, the stretch run in baseball, when scoreboard watching is its own sport.

The Rangers have 24 games remaining—15 at home, nine on the road. At home, Texas plays .561 baseball. On the road, they play .431. 

Doing simple math, playing .561 at home times 15 home games means they will go 8-7 at home. Nine road games at a .431 winning percentage means they will go 4-5 on the road. That’s 12-12 the rest of the way, or .500, which is slightly better than the .493 they’re at today. 

They are currently 68-70, two games out of first in the West and 1.5 games out of the wildcard, tied with the Blue Jays. While they’re mathematically closer to the wildcard, their best chance of smelling postseason air is winning the division—they have only one team to catch. For the wild card, they have two teams to jump over and one or two to stave off. 

So, if the Rangers do indeed go 12-12, which sounds about right for this team, they will finish the season 80-82. 

For them to win the division over Houston, which is 70-68 right now, the Astros would have to win just nine more games this season (they, too have 24 remaining games) since they own the tie-breaker over the Rangers. An 80-82 tie with Houston does the Rangers no good. Houston will need to finish 79-83.

Of course, either team could get hot or cold and throw off the math. But they won’t. Math doesn’t lie.

And neither does their play on the field up to this point. 

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