After entering the final few weeks of the regular season with a real chance at making the postseason, the Texas Rangers suffered a complete collapse, and an eight-game losing streak sealed their playoff fate on Tuesday night. The finale of their penultimate series against the Minnesota Twins is completely meaningless.
But the game will be played regardless, and it will start at 2:35 p.m. ET. Bailey Ober will take the mound for the Twins, while Tyler Mahle toes the rubber for the Rangers.
Let’s break down this matchup with some odds and lines at DraftKings Sportsbook.
Minnesota Twins at Texas Rangers prediction, preview
As Texas fans look back on the team’s season, they’ll rue the injuries to Corey Seager and Marcus Semien that derailed the offense. Since Seager went on the injured list with appendicitis on August 27, the Rangers went a solid 12-11 but posted just a .660 team OPS, a mark that would’ve been the league’s second-worst across the full season. Pitching injuries didn’t help: Cy Young Award candidate Nathan Eovaldi suffered a rotator cuff injury in late August. Minnesota’s losses were less surprising: it sold virtually the entire team at the trade deadline and slumped to a 17-33 record thereafter, a .340 winning percentage that would’ve outpaced only the historically woeful Colorado Rockies this season.
Mahle has been a bright spot in Texas’ collapse. The 30-year-old underwent Tommy John surgery in 2023 but made his return late last season and had a 2.34 ERA through his first 14 starts this season. Despite being shut down for three months with shoulder tightness, he showed no signs of rust in his return last Friday, pitching 4.2 innings of scoreless ball and giving up just four hits while walking one and striking out six. Advanced numbers suggest that he’s been a little lucky — his FIP is 3.29 and his xERA is 4.37 — but the Rangers have had the league’s best fielding unit, so it’s not all luck. He should be effective in four or five innings of work before turning it over to a bullpen that has had just a 2.81 ERA this month.
To be fair, Ober leads the American League in a major statistical category — it’s just not a good one. The gigantic redhead has allowed 30 big flies this season and has pitched to a 6.78 ERA since the start of June. On the bright side, he ranks in the league’s top decile in chase rate, walk rate, and extension, but ranking highly in chase rate doesn’t mean too much when paired with a 37th-percentile whiff rate and the league’s worst fielding unit. He’s been somewhat worse on the road than at home, allowing a 5.62 ERA on unfriendly turf, though at least Globe Life Field is the league’s second-most pitcher-friendly park.
Minnesota Twins at Texas Rangers pick, best bet
Best Bet: Result after 4th Inning (3 Way) – Texas Rangers (+100)
While the Twins’ post-deadline offense has been fairly impressive given its lack of talent on paper, Ober is simply one of the league’s worst starting pitchers and Mahle — while healthy — one of the best. I’m not going for Mahle to record a win because he might not complete the fifth, but I trust Texas to take an early lead.
Strong Lean: Rowdy Tellez 2+ Hits + Runs + RBI’s (-116)
After being one of the league’s worst hitters in Seattle, Tellez has turned it around somewhat with the Rangers, posting a .257/.317/.431 slash line and recording two or more combined hits/runs/RBI’s on 17 different occasions, including four times in his last nine games. He’s one of few Texas hitters well-suited to take advantage of Ober’s propensity to allow barrels.
