ARLINGTON, Texas — Evan Carter stood in his locker after having been no-hit for the first time in his career. He was still processing what happened.“If you had told me [after the first inning] that was how it was going to end up, I would have strongly disagreed,” Carter said after the Texas Rangers’ 9-0 loss to the Houston Astros on Monday at Globe Life Field.Houston threw a combined no-hitter with Tatsuya Imai, Steven Okert and Alimber Santa. Imai was facing the Rangers for the first time. Santa was making his MLB debut. It was the first time the Rangers had been no-hit since the New York Yankees’ Corey Kluber no-hit Texas on May 19, 2021. It was also the first no-hitter of the 2026 season. It may prove to be a critical moment for a Rangers offense that has seen peaks and valleys the past two weeks and was coming off scoring just one run in Anaheim on Sunday. In the aftermath, there was the game. But there was also the season as the Rangers reach the one-third checkpoint of the campaign at 24-29.“There’s no excuses when you get no-hit,” Rangers manager Skip Schumaker said. Rangers Fall in No-HitterTHE MOMENT!!! pic.twitter.com/yRVK1rHq9G— Houston Astros (@astros) May 26, 2026The Rangers were down 1-0 after the first inning but Schumaker said he felt good in that moment. Imai had struggled to throws strikes in previous starts and he wanted his hitters to force him into the zone. Joc Pederson and Alejandro Osuna drew walks and put Brandon Nimmo in the box with two on and no one out. Nimmo said after the game that he was being super-selective based on the first two at-bats. He had never faced Imai before. No one in the lineup had. Nimmo grounded a 2-2 slider into a double play. It was right down the middle. “It’s easy to come up with a plan,” Nimmo said. “It’s hard to execute it.”But Nimmo had. He forced Imai to throw him a strike. It was Texas’ best shot at a run the entire game. Imai figure out his location struggles after that. His slider had more bite. He turned three walks in the first inning into his first career quality start. Schumaker saw a team struggling for hard contact. Each inning seemed to have carryover.“We wanted to get him in the strike zone,” Schumaker said. “So we took our walks and, again, we had traffic in the first inning. We felt like we were on our way to a big inning and we wanted to get into their bullpen early.”Schumaker said the Rangers had good, deep counts but were getting beat on fastballs. He felt the light contact was making it easy on the Astros. Nimmo said the Astros were sharp on defense, none more than Pederson’s grounder to Astros shortstop Jeremy Pena in the third inning. It was one of the few hard-hit baseballs on the night. Pena made a terrific drive to his right to make the grab and throw Pederson out at first. “I mean that was a shot and he made an absolutely unbelievable play,” Nimmo said. “Sometimes that can be the difference between a no-hitter and not.”Nimmo spoke for 13 minutes after the game. He said that the team has been talking internally about bunting more, using more hit-and-run and designing more offensive creation. But those things must be executed. Schumaker said that, aside from the Colorado series, the offense has not been where he’s wanted it for two weeks. There is a sense of urgency, he said. Schumaker is likely to spend another sleepless night looking for answers. “We have to do something different — that’s the takeaway,” Schumaker said. “I’m going to look for different ways to make it click because, aside from the Rockies series, we haven’t been great on the offensive side.”Carter said afterward that it’s a game the Rangers must flush it. With each passing game without an answer, they get closer to flushing the season along with it. Add us as a preferred source on GoogleFollow