Rangers fire offensive coordinator Donnie Ecker after hitting struggles, 17-18 start to season

After a tough start to the season, the Texas Rangers are starting to make changes. The team announced Sunday that they have fired offensive coordinator Donnie Ecker after a hitting slump has led the Rangers to a 17-18 record early in the year.

"After lengthy discussions and deliberations, we feel now is the appropriate time to provide our hitters with a new voice as we pursue goals of winning the division and reaching the postseason," Chris Young, the team's president of baseball operations, said in a statement. "We are extremely grateful to Donnie for all that he has accomplished here with the Rangers."

The move came after Texas beat the Seattle Mariners 8-1 at home on Sunday, avoiding a sweep from the AL West rival. But the past few weeks have seen a smattering of disappointing results for the Rangers, who lost to the Mariners 13-1 and 2-1 earlier over the weekend and had three one-run losses last in a row last week.

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After short stints with the Cincinnati Reds and San Francisco Giants, Ecker joined Texas' hitting staff in 2022, helping lead the team to a World Series Championship in 2023.

In the statement, the team said that Ecker's replacement and "the structure of the club's hitting staff" will be addressed sometime this week.

Texas' early-season problems have not had to do with their pitching efforts: The Rangers are tied for the sixth-best ERA in the league, at 3.44, and have one of the lowest WHIP numbers, 1.17, as well. And yet the team has lost 18 games already this year, including seven of their last 10.

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The issues with the Rangers are much more about their hitting: Their .228 collective batting average is the sixth-lowest in the league. Texas also has also racked up the second-lowest number of runs and RBIs, beat out only by the league-worst Colorado Rockies.

At this point in the season, the Rangers are sitting towards the bottom of the AL West, four games back from the division-best Mariners and only sitting above the slightly hopeless Los Angeles Angels. Clearly Texas' front office is seeing the same problem, and is hoping that a coaching change will reinvigorate the Rangers' offense — before it's too late.