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The Texas Rangers, despite trading away Yu Darvish at the deadline, remain within striking distance of an AL wild card spot as the calendar prepares to flip over to September. The Rangers saw their postseason chances suffer two hits Thursday afternoon, however.

First, Texas dropped their series finale with the Houston Astros (HOU 5, TEX 1), and they've now lost four of their last six games. The Rangers are four games behind the surging Minnesota Twins for the second wild card spot with four teams ahead of them. Gaining ground on one team is tough. Chasing down four teams in a month is damn near impossible.

And secondly, third baseman Adrian Beltre exited Thursday's game with a hamstring strain, and it did not look good. He walked off the field pretty gingerly. Here's the play, and here's Beltre leaving the field:

Beltre did not mince words after the game. He admitted the hamstring injury is pretty bad.

There is only a month to go in the regular season now, so anything more than a minor strain very well might end Beltre's year. He missed time with a calf injury earlier this season, remember. Those nagging lower injuries have a way of sabotaging a season.

Beltre, 38, went 0 for 2 with a walk Thursday and is hitting a stout .315/.393/.553 with 16 home runs in 80 games this season. The man is a marvel. He continues to produce on both sides of the ball at a high level. Joey Gallo can step in at third base, though the Rangers are losing an awful lot with Beltre on the shelf.

For now the Rangers just have to hope for the best, because they are still in the postseason race. They may not be front-runners at the moment, but they are in the race and they will play meaningful games in September. Can't ask for much more than that.