Kevin Sherrington

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ARLINGTON – At one point Friday night in the Texas Rangers' last stand, Tom Hicks, Nolan Ryan and Ryan's long-time business partner, Don Sanders, vacated their seats simultaneously, leading to wild speculation on my part, anyway, that maybe they were getting together on a deal at last.

As highlights go, friends, it's the best I can do.

Otherwise, it was the same old, same old: the Rangers' offensive ineptitude rolled into the weekend, the Angels and the playoffs faded even further from view, if not into obscurity, and Vlad Guerrero continues to torment.

And to top it all off, it appears that Hicks was just going to the restroom.

Perfect.

Given a chance to redeem themselves Friday after their worst week, something the Rangers have done over and over in an improbable season, they hung up a line of zeroes instead.

The team that had been so resilient had no response when it mattered most, which can lead to only one conclusion:

It's football season.

Giving the Rangers the benefit of the doubt going into this crucial series, I figured they stood a good chance of doing to the Angels what they've done all year long. Instead, they now trail the Angels by 7½ games, their biggest deficit of the season, and there's no reason to believe it'll get much closer.

Frankly, the Rangers needed a sweep of the Angels, whose only road trip after this weekend takes them to Oakland. At the very least, the Rangers needed to shake themselves out of this zombie-like state.

Could it have been the pitching? Granted, it was Scott Kazmir, the major league leader in strikeouts per nine innings the last couple of years, and he fanned five in six shutout innings of the Angels' 2-0 win.

Yes, sir, another fine outing by a guy the Angels acquired last month just for these purposes, something that owners of championship teams occasionally do.

The Rangers received no such help from their owner at the deadline, but that's another story. To be fair, it wouldn't have done much good Friday. At some point, no matter how good your pitching, you have to score some runs.

Over the last 46 innings, a streak that will live in infamy, the Rangers have scored exactly one run.

Come to think of it, actually, with 34,240 fans at the Ballpark – wearing red, waving towels, desperate to be incited – it did seem a little like playoff baseball. Ranger playoff baseball, circa late '90s, when, in a pair of postseason sweeps, the Rangers scored a total of two runs.

Waiting for the Rangers to score this week was like watching your 401(k) flatline.

Anytime they mounted a threat – runners at first and second and one out in the second, first and third and one out in the fifth, bases loaded with two outs in the eighth – it fizzled just as quickly.

Frankly, it had less the look of dominance by a superior team than the shock-and-awed look of a young team that had lost its way.

These Rangers have lost their swagger, such as it was. The first-rate pitching returned Friday, as did the defense. Elvis Andrus, Nelson Cruz and Marlon Byrd all made dazzling snags, Byrd's, in particular, robbing Guerrero of a double.

But, as usual, Guerrero just about beat the Rangers all by himself. His third-inning line drive homer probably stapled some unfortunate fan to her seat.

Ron Washington said all the right things afterward, insisting he saw life out there. But it didn't look promising from my view, or Ryan's, either.

Asked if he was ready to deliver a eulogy, Ryan said, "Stranger things have happened, but I'm a realist. That's a pretty good club across the way.

"It's hard to poke holes in 'em."

Hard to let go of a fun season, too. But it's time, or maybe past it.