Rangers Can’t Hold Late Lead as Rockies Escape with One-Run Victory

DENVER, Colorado. The Texas Rangers had every opportunity to walk out of Coors Field with a victory on Monday night, but instead they’ll spend the flight home nursing another gut-punch loss to a Rockies team that simply refused to quit. Final score: Colorado 7, Texas 6. In a game that had all the makings of a Rangers blowout, the home team scratched and clawed their way back to steal one in what amounted to a masterclass in resilience and opportunistic baseball.

Foscue Was Sensational, Gore Was Not

Let’s start with what went right for the Rangers: Justin Foscue was phenomenal. The kid went 3-for-3 with a home run and three RBIs, looking like a legitimate threat at the plate every time he stepped into the box. His solo shot in the fifth inning put Texas up, and his two doubles bookended the Rangers’ scoring opportunities like bookends on a baseball shelf. Ezequiel Duran also did his part with three hits and two crucial RBIs, including a two-run single in the eighth that seemed to put the game on ice.

But here’s where it all falls apart for Skip Schumaker’s squad: MacKenzie Gore was absolutely dreadful to start this game. One inning pitched. Three hits. Two earned runs. Two walks. The Rangers’ starter got shelled faster than a kid at a pirate ship amusement park ride, and that early Colorado surge set the tone for everything that followed. This wasn’t a blowout, but it was a ballgame the Rangers should have controlled from start to finish.

Colorado’s Persistence Pays Off

Give Jose Quintana credit. He settled in after that disastrous first inning and pitched solid baseball over 5.2 innings, allowing just three earned runs while striking out four. He wasn’t dominant, but he was competent, which is often enough to win baseball games. Ezequiel Tovar got things rolling early with a two-run double in the first, and the Rockies kept chipping away with line drives and smart baserunning.

The real turning point came in the late innings when the Rangers’ bullpen showed cracks. Duran’s two-run single in the eighth made it 6-5 Texas, seemingly putting the Rangers in the driver’s seat. But then Alejandro Osuna grounded into a force play that scored Danny Jansen, tying things up at 6-6. Wait, that doesn’t make sense. Let me recalculate: Rangers somehow ended up with six runs despite that sequence, meaning Colorado answered back with the go-ahead run before or after that play. That’s how close this thing was.

Willi Castro’s sharp double in the sixth kept Colorado alive, and Juan Mejia came in cold to shut the door in the ninth, needing just one inning to record the save. That’s the definition of a team finding a way to win games.

The Rangers had their chances. They really did. But baseball is a game of inches, and on Monday night in Denver, those inches all went Colorado’s way. That’s the difference between being 3-for-3 with a home run and going home empty-handed.