The Rangers got everything they could ask of MacKenzie Gore except the numbers.
The left-hander, acquired from Washington last winter for a package of five prospects, made 34 starts, the most in Major League Baseball. MLB.com's Kennedi Landry reported that no Texas pitcher had topped the majors in starts since Charlie Hough's 40 in 1987. He also led the club in innings.
The final line read 8-11 and a 4.58 ERA. Only nine of the 34 starts were quality starts, and among qualified American League pitchers his ERA was second-highest and his 1.34 WHIP fifth-highest, per Landry's figures.
Two pitchers in one uniform
The split that stands out is location. In 16 home starts at Globe Life Field, Gore posted a 3.43 ERA and a 4-2 record, and Texas won 11 of those games. In 18 road starts the ERA climbed to 5.73 and the record fell to 4-9, one of the widest home-road gaps in the league.
The stuff did not leave him. His 174 strikeouts tied Tampa Bay's Drew Rasmussen for 11th in the AL, and his fielding-independent ERA of 3.87 was 0.71 better than his actual ERA, the fifth-largest such gap among qualified starters. He had stretches that matched his billing: six starts in May at a 3.56 ERA and five in August at 2.70.
Chris Young, the club's president of baseball operations, said when the season wrapped that the front office has not finished its player-by-player review, and that Gore is "not the only one that didn't take that step this year." He named Jack Leiter and Kumar Rocker as young starters who also fell short of what the club expected.
Young framed the plan as a bet that rising young arms would cover for the aging of Jacob deGrom and Nathan Eovaldi. "We didn't accomplish it this year," he said. He also vouched for Gore's effort, noting that the left-hander once took the ball on three days' rest, and said the expectation is a strong offseason and "a better year next year."
The rest of the winter's list
Gore is one piece of a broader reckoning. Texas missed the postseason for a third straight year after its 2023 World Series title, and in Landry's offseason rundown Young declined to commit to a rebuild or a retool, saying the club needs to "reshuffle our cards to some degree." Four veterans on big contracts, deGrom, Eovaldi, Corey Seager and Brandon Nimmo, can block trades.
