3 Texas Rangers most to blame for Game 2 loss in the World Series

1. Marcus Semien

A night after Corey Seager and Adolis Garcia were the heroes in Arlington, those two batters went cold. Seager was 0-for-4 with a strikeout. Garcia was 0-for-3 with a strikeout and a walk. They didn't have the spark the Rangers needed. But they're still not the biggest players to blame.

Marcus Semien, come on down.

On a night when the Rangers needed someone other than Seager and Garcia to make their mark, Semien was absent. He struck out on two of his first three at-bats and finally logged a garbage time hit in the bottom of the ninth with Texas already trailing 9-1.

The lineup was poor across the board, logging just four hits. The Rangers were 0-1 with runners in scoring position. That's right, there was only one runner in scoring position all night.

No wonder Bochy shut up shop and conceded the game with his bullpen decisions. The lineup swinging the way they were was never going to generate the offense needed to turn a 4-1 deficit into anything but a loss. They lost the battle to Merrill Kelly and the Diamondbacks bullpen, which hardly needed to stretch to lock in the win.

The issue here is Semien hasn't been contributing enough for much of the postseason. He was .190/.266/.224 going into Saturday's game. He was 1-for-6 with two strikeouts on Friday night. The Rangers have been winning in spite of their second baseman and leadoff man. And they lost on Saturday because of it.