Skip Schumaker walked into a job built around expectations, and the Texas Rangers are leaving him with another winter of hard questions.
After a 6-4 loss to the Minnesota Twins on the final day of the season Sunday, Texas finished 80-82 and missed the playoffs for the third straight year. The Rangers needed a win plus an Astros loss to seize the AL West, but Houston took care of its side by beating the Athletics in Sacramento, ending any postseason path for Texas.
Schumaker pointed to two clear reasons the season ended short of October. One was the Rangers’ struggles away from home.
Texas dropped the road series in Minnesota and won only one road series after the All-Star break. At one point, the club went more than two months without winning a road series, and that helped drag its road record to 35-46.
Houston, by comparison, went 42-39 on the road.
“We just weren't good enough, you know?” he said. “We weren't good enough on the road and we weren't good enough against teams we should have beat.”
The other issue was how Texas handled the teams around it in the standings. The Rangers went 33-38 against opponents with a record of .500 or better, while the Astros finished 29-26 in those games.
Houston also took the Silver Boot Series by a wide margin, which meant it owned the tiebreaker. Had Texas won two of those rivalry games, it would be the team heading to the postseason instead of Houston.
Schumaker made clear the disappointment won’t disappear quickly.
Days like Sunday are why the Rangers are going to miss the playoffs he told Rangers Sports Network after the game.
Hear from Skip after the final game of the 2026 season: pic.twitter.com/uDmJ42HvVj
“It’s going to lead to a lot of soul searching for Schumaker and the baseball staff this offseason,” he said, adding that there is “… there's too good of talent in that room for us to fall short.”
He also praised the group for sticking with it through the full schedule.
“They gave it everything they had the whole year through [game] 162,” he said. “I'm know grateful for that.
But the goal was to get to the postseason and make a run and we didn't do that. We fell short and that's going to hurt for a little bit.”
The Rangers now head into an offseason filled with major decisions, though those choices could be delayed if MLB owners and the MLB Players Association fail to reach a new collective bargaining agreement by Dec. 1. If that happens, owners plan to lock out the players, just as they did between the 2021 and 2022 seasons, until a deal is reached.
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