Astros’ Ruthless Sweep Buries Rangers’ Fading Playoff Pulse
By Evan Grant, Rangers Beat Writer, The Athletic Houston, TX – September 22, 2025
The air in Minute Maid Park hung thick with the kind of humidity that clings like regret, and for the Texas Rangers, the weekend series against the Houston Astros felt like a slow-motion unraveling of everything they thought they’d rebuilt. Sunday’s 5-2 finale wasn’t just another loss in a September skid – it was the capstone to a three-game broom job, a sweep that didn’t just dust the Rangers’ wild-card dreams but vacuumed up the Silver Boot for the ninth straight year and left Jacob deGrom staring at the dugout tunnel like it held the answers to a season gone sour. Jose Altuve’s two-run homer in the third – a laser into the Crawford Boxes – set the tone, and by the time Jeremy Peña tacked on his own solo shot in the sixth plus a bases-loaded double in the eighth, the Astros had clawed a half-game lead in the AL West over Seattle. For Texas, now five games back of the second wild card with nine to play, the math isn’t cruel. It’s arithmetic.
This wasn’t supposed to be the script. The Rangers, defending champions who stormed from a 90-loss ’22 to World Series glory in ’23, entered the series riding a three-game win streak and whispers of a late surge. DeGrom, the $185 million ace whose Tommy John rehab kept him shelved until June, toed the rubber in Game 3 looking every bit the cyborg: 97-mph heat, a slider that bit like Minute Maid’s crawfish boil. But the first inning unraveled him – 35 pitches, four walks, a hit batsman – and by the fifth, Astros bats feasted on a hanging curve. “Felt good until it didn’t,” deGrom deadpanned postgame, his ice bag a familiar prop on his elbow. The bullpen, a patchwork of A-ball call-ups and weary vets, imploded for three more runs, turning a pitcher’s duel into a procession. Manager Bruce Bochy, the grizzled tactician with five rings, pulled no punches: “We got outplayed, outpitched, out everything. Time to look in the mirror.”
The sweep’s sting cuts deeper than box scores. Houston, perennial Lone Star tormentors, now own the season series 10-3, a lopsided ledger that evokes the ’19 ALCS bloodbath where the Astros’ trash-can symphony silenced Texas. For a franchise that clinched its first title since ’11 on the back of Corey Seager’s heroics and a bullpen lockdown, this feels like regression – injuries to Seager’s hamstring and Adolis García’s wrist sidelining stars, a rotation ERA ballooning to 4.85 since the All-Star break, and a lineup that’s mustered three runs over 27 innings against Houston’s staff. FanGraphs pegs their playoff odds at 8 percent, a freefall from 45 percent a fortnight ago. “It’s brutal,” catcher Jonah Heim admitted, his voice flat as the Astrodome astroturf. “But ’23 taught us deficits are deficits – we flipped ’em once.”
Across the diamond, the Astros are a machine tuned for October. Altuve, 35 and locked in with a .310 clip, has homered in three straight, his plate discipline a masterclass in veteran guile. Peña, the ’22 World Series MVP, is slashing .295/.360/.520, his double Sunday a dagger that scored two. Yordan Alvarez, nursing a knee tweak, still loomed like a storm cloud. Manager Joe Espada, in his first year post-Astros legend Dusty Baker, preached process: “We’re built for this – rivalry, road trips, runs.” With Seattle looming in a three-game set, Houston’s grip on the West tightens, their 92-64 mark a testament to resilience after a ’24 flameout.
For Texas, the autopsy begins at home against the Angels. Evan Carter, the rookie sparkplug batting .278 in September, vowed fire: “Sweep’s a wake-up. We swing harder.” But whispers of a lost year – the ’24 hangover, Bruce’s creeping retirement talk – swirl. The Silver Boot, that gleaming boot trophy for intrastate supremacy, mocks from Houston’s clubhouse; Texas hasn’t touched it since ’16. Bochy, ever the optimist, invoked ’23: “We were dead in May. Buried teams dig out.” Yet with Baltimore and Kansas City jostling for wild cards, the hole feels bottomless.
As the Rangers boarded their charter Sunday night, the I-10 corridor between Houston and Arlington stretched like a scar. Rivalries aren’t just games; they’re identity. Houston’s broom job isn’t poetry – it’s prose, cold and clinical. For Texas, clinging to championship ghosts, it’s a reminder: Glory’s fleeting, but grit endures. Nine games left. A miracle? Possible. A must-win streak? Mandatory. In the Lone Star State, where Astros taunts echo eternal, the Rangers don’t fold. They reload – or reload the highlight reel of what was.
Leave a Reply