ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — Corey Seager is going through a slump like none he has ever had to endure in the big leagues.
The two-time World Series MVP shortstop is hitless in his last seven games for the Texas Rangers. That is part of a longer 0-for-27 span, also a career long, that includes 11 strikeouts.
“You’re obviously still working on things and you’d like to see some better results, but you’re not getting them,” Seager said after going 0 for 4 with two strikeouts in a wild 6-5 comeback win over Arizona on Wednesday night.
While he has started 42 of the Rangers’ 43 games, the 32-year-old Seager said physically he feels “completely fine.” He has played 24 in a row since his only game off April 16.
“It’s one of those things that you’re going to figure it out out there,” Seager said. “It’s always been like my focus, right, you’re going to figure it out swinging. So right now, I want to keep going out there and trying to figure it out.”
The Rangers had a day off Thursday, when his .179 batting average ranked 167th out of 174 qualified MLB hitters. Seager, in the fifth season of a $325 million, 10-year deal, has 28 hits and 22 walks but 50 strikeouts account for 27.5% of his 182 plate appearances. He has seven home runs and 20 RBIs.
His last hit was an RBI single in the fourth inning at Yankee Stadium on May 6. Seager’s solo homer in the first inning put Texas ahead to stay in that 6-1 win over New York, but strikeouts in his final two at-bats started his hitless span. He is 6 for 61 (.098) with 23 K’s over his last 16 games.
This is the latest in any of his 12 seasons that Seager, a .285 career hitter in 4,500 at-bats over 1,173 games, has been below .200. He never finished a game under that mark in eight of those seasons, including three times he went 1 for 5 (.200) in openers (2016, 2020 and 2024) before having at least three hits in the second game.
“Corey still feels good to go,” first-year Rangers manager Skip Schumaker said. “I like him in the lineup. So I’m going to continue putting him there if his body feels good and his mind is right. And it is, so that part is good.”
Schumaker did acknowledge that there is a date picked for Seager to sit out a game around one of the team’s off days. The manager didn’t say if that would be Friday at Houston, or coincide with their only remaining scheduled off day this month, next Thursday between road series against Colorado and the Los Angeles Angels.
Texas sat slumping first baseman Jake Burger for two games last weekend. He went 3 for 3 on Tuesday night, then matched a career high with four RBIs on Wednesday, a three-run homer and then a tying RBI single in the ninth inning.
Seager was hitting .194 after 10 games last year, which had been his latest sub-.200 mark, then went 14 for 30 (.467) his next eight games. He finished the season at .271 with 21 homers and 50 RBIs, even with an 0-for-25 span over six-plus games in June. He was limited to 102 games overall because of hamstring issues and an appendectomy.
“Someone told me a long time ago ... that when you are in a funk, it just means you’re going to get really, really hot,” Schumaker said. “There’s some really big names right now that have had tough months, and that’s OK to start the season. And that just means, in my opinion, that he’s going to have a really good five months.”
___
AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb
Stephen Hawkins, The Associated Press
