For the first time in nearly a month, the Texas Rangers are back at .500.

After sweeping the Chicago White Sox over the weekend, Texas now boasts a 36-36 record as they head into a home stand closing series with the Kansas City Royals.

Practically, the entire season, it’s been the starting pitching that has stepped up and kept the Rangers somewhat afloat.

However, this pivotal series was a different group of “Dawgs,” as Rangers reliever Luke Jackson said.

The Texas bullpen posted a 1.88 ERA in a league high 38 and a third innings during a 6-1 week’s worth of play.

On Friday night, Texas was forced into yet another bullpen game after completing a 4-2 bullpen day over the Nationals just days earlier.

Usually, you don’t talk to a starting pitcher on the day of his start, nor do you even see him until he walks to the bullpen 30 minutes before game time.

Don’t tell Rangers Friday night starter Shawn Armstrong what you usually do or don’t do. Before the game, Armstrong was opening baseball cards in the clubhouse before he came out to throw with the rest of the Ranger relievers.

After that, all he proceeded to do was throw three perfect innings, starting the parade of seven Ranger relievers who combined to allow just one run the entire game in a 3-1 victory.

Following a game where you use seven relievers, the last thing you want to do is play an extra-innings game.

Considering that Texas had yet to go past nine this season, they probably felt pretty good about their odds of playing just a regular game on Saturday.

Although that wasn’t the case, as the Rangers were forced into an 11-inning contest that they eventually won 5-4.

Following six innings from Jacob deGrom, the Rangers already taxed bullpen was forced to cover what would end up being five innings.

Having not pitched the night before, the Rangers turned to Caleb Boushley, who came in and struck out the side in his first inning of work.

In extra innings, it was another non-leverage guy who stepped up in the form of Jacob Latz, who earned the win in the game.
Tasked with holding Chicago off the board and giving the Rangers a chance to walk off the game, Latz put up not one but two zeros in the 10th and 11th and paved the way for Adolis Garcia’s eventual walk-off hit.

Going for the sweep on Sunday, the Rangers turned to Kumar Rocker after it was announced that Tyler Mahle needed to head to the 15-day IL with shoulder tightness.

Rocker went five shutout innings, and Jacob Webb followed with a 1.1 innings outing, allowing just 1 run.

Holding onto a one-run lead, the Rangers turned to Cole Winn, who perfectly bridged a gap to the 9th inning on Friday night.

Winn stepped up huge and threw 1.2 shutout innings, continuing his streak of not having allowed an earned run in any outing this season.

Needing to nail the game down, the Rangers turned to Jackson, who came up huge with a scoreless inning and secured the sweep.

Overall, the Rangers pen may just be the hottest it’s been all season. With unexpected characters like Winn and Latz stepping up and leveraging arms like Robert Garcia, Chris Martin, and Jackson being key contributors, the bullpen seemingly has the pieces it needs to be successful throughout the season.

Despite that, we know that if Texas continues its strong play, it will certainly look to add to upgrade the club at or around the trade deadline, and will bullpen will no doubt be one of those areas.