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ARLINGTON, Texas - Decisions. Decisions. Decisions.

The Rangers have quite a few to make as they enter their first offseason in four years without a postseason game.

Will Nelson Cruz be back? How about Joe Nathan? Others, such as catchers A.J. Pierzysnki and Geovany Soto, outfielder David Murphy and pitcher Matt Garza will be discussed ad nauseam before the Winter Meetings in December in Orlando.

Manager Ron Washington touched on the big ones -- Cruz and Nathan -- during his postmortem press conference Tuesday morning, 12 hours after the Rangers lost to the Tampa Bay Rays, 5-2, in the American League tiebreaker game. He and general manager Jon Daniels and the rest of the brain trust will sit down at some point and go over all the options.

The big one is Cruz. He was suspended for the final 50 games of the regular season for violation of Major League Baseball's Drug Prevention and Treatment policy. Cruz has to shoulder a portion of the blame for the Rangers not making a stronger push for the AL West title, giving it up to Oakland in the final month.

The Rangers were disappointed by Cruz's decision-making and suspension, but they also know there's a lack of right-hander power hitters in the major leagues and the minors, too. The Rangers are likely to make Cruz a qualifying offer of around $13.5 million.

Washington for one would welcome Cruz back.

“When you think about a Nelson Cruz, who wouldn’t want a Nelson Cruz?" Cruz said. "Big heart, great teammate, but there’s a lot of decisions to be made on our part and Nelson’s part. I do believe Jon Daniels will go down that road and see where it works or doesn’t work."

Then there's Nathan. The Rangers have a $9.5 million option of him for 2014 with a $750,000 buyout, a contract that Nathan can void and become a free agent. Nathan, 38, made it clear all season that he expects to pitch for several more years and will seek a multi-year deal.

Nathan blew three saves this season and finished with 43 saves. He may walk the tightrope some times, which drives the fan base crazy, but he's reliable and gets the job done.

“I thought Joe Nathan had a tremendous year,” Washington said. “I think at the end of the year, Joe Nathan proved to everyone that doubted him what he was made of and I certainly would love to continue giving him the ball because he gets outs.”

There will be other decisions. Both Pierzynski and Soto they would like to return, but the Rangers may set their sights on free-agent-to-be Brian McCann.

They gave up a lot for Garza, including pitcher C.J. Edwards -- who pitched tremendously for the Cubs in the minors after the trade. Is that reason enough to bring Garza back? Did he show enough while going through a maddening stretch in August and September?

Whatever happens, this will be a fascinating offseason, one that Daniels and his staff will have to make their mark on.

ARLINGTON, Texas -- For those of you searching for someone to blame for the fact that a second consecutive season ended in early disappointment for the Texas Rangers, get your mitts off the manager.

It’s not that Ron Washington won’t accept his share. He will. He’s always been that way. But don’t pin it all on a guy who managed to keep his club together and focused, even when the season started to get away from it.

How many teams would have recovered from the gut punch of a walk-off grand slam in Kansas City that pretty much locked up the AL West for the Oakland A's? But the Rangers came home and won seven straight games to force Game 163, only to have the season end with baserunning blunders and missed opportunities.

General manager Jon Daniels and his staff will undoubtedly go through a detailed analysis of what went wrong in 2013. The problems are many. This team was crushed by injuries, starting with former 18-game winner Matt Harrison. They were supposed to have Colby Lewis back in June, but the only time he took the mound for the Rangers this season was to throw the ceremonial first pitch prior to Monday’s game. Lance Berkman never did earn the $11 million the club paid him. Nelson Cruz’s 50-game suspension took a productive power bat out of the lineup for too long.

This team didn’t have enough in the lineup to consistently score runs, and the starting pitching depth was tested.

How much of that is the manager’s fault? In many ways, he should be lauded for managing to keep his team in the race for a playoff spot as long as he did. It helped that the Houston Astros and Los Angeles Angels were in the AL West for the Rangers to feast on. I’ll grant you that. But this team was fighting until the end, despite a disappearing act in early September that erased hope for a division title.

“He’s been on top of it all,” pitcher Derek Holland said about Washington’s leadership. “He doesn’t let any of the pressure get to us. He’s been behind us. He’s been pulling for us. He’s a great leader.

“He knows what to say, when to say it and how to say it.”

Consider how Washington utilized team meetings this season. The skipper doesn’t care for them. He understands you can’t overdo it as a manager when it comes to gathering your team as a group. But each time he did it this season -- and it was more than he would have liked -- he got results.

This is clearly a team still heeding Washington’s message. The Rangers were far from perfect, as Monday's adventures on the basepaths illustrated. But, all along, Washington has maintained that his team’s aggressive play on the bases sometimes results in mistakes. He lives with them because, more times than not, his runners make things happen with their legs. It was that type of baseball that helped them play well in August despite not having Cruz in the lineup.

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The Tampa Rays are headed to the postseason for the fourth time in the last six seasons after beating the Texas Rangers in the one-game tiebreaker.

It was a game won by the team that had the better combination of pitching, hitting and defense. Let’s go inside the box score to assess the biggest keys to the Rays’ victory.

How Price won
David Price had previously struggled against the Rangers, going 1-3 against them in the regular season and 0-3 in postseason play prior to Monday.

Price didn’t get many swings-and-misses: the four he got were his third-fewest in any start this season. But he won this game by keeping the ball out of spots in which it could get drilled.

Only 21 of his 118 pitches were over the middle-third of the plate width-wise, which on a percentage basis (18 percent) ranked third-lowest among his starts in 2013.

Price’s defense cooperated, turning 13 of the ground balls hit against him into outs and making a pair of catches on four line drives hit against him. That ran counter to Price’s last four starts, in which he allowed hits on 18 of the 22 liners hit against him.

Price’s win was similar to that which Joe Saunders got in the Wild Card Game against the Rangers last season. Saunders entered that game 3-7 in his career against the Rangers and 0-6 with a 9.38 ERA in six career starts at Rangers Ballpark, but beat Yu Darvish to send the Orioles into the ALDS.

It was the fifth complete-game win in a one-game tiebreaker, the first since Al Leiter of the 1999 Mets beat the Cincinnati Reds. That game also marked the last time a road team won one of these games. Visiting teams had lost the previous three.

At-Bats of the Game: Longoria vs Martin Perez, Alexi Ogando
Evan Longoria had a pretty lousy start to September.

But he sure made up for it in the final week.

Longoria capped his latest clutch run with three hits, including a home run on Monday.

All three hits came on pitches in the same area- the lower-half of the strike zone.

Longoria has been mashing that pitch all week, as you can see in the image atop this article. Ten of his 12 hits came on pitches to that location.

Longoria had been struggling against those pitches prior to his successful run.

He missed on nearly one-third of his swings against them in the first three weeks of September

The final week for Longoria was similar to his final week in 2011, when he posted a .500 on-base percentage and had seven RBIs in seven games (more on that below) to help the Rays reach the postseason.

Defensive Player of the Game: David Price
Price had a pickoff, caught a runner stealing on another pickoff, and made a nice defensive play on an Elvis Andrus bunt in the eighth inning. The pickoff of Andrus was his first straight pickoff of the season and the caught stealing versus Kinsler was his fourth of 2013.

Price has done a good job at holding baserunners. He’s allowed 11 steals, but has had 11 runners caught stealing or picked off.

Elias Sports Bureau Stats of the Night
Longoria’s seventh home run in his team’s regular-season finale breaks Stan Musial’s record for most home runs in regular-season finales.

Six of those seven home runs came in the last three seasons. He hit two, including the game-winner in the Rays’ win over the Yankees in the game that clinched a Wild Card berth, on the final day of the 2011 season.

He added three more home runs in a win over the Orioles in the 2012 regular-season finale. And then he homered in Monday’s win to help lead Tampa Bay into the postseason again.

ARLINGTON, Texas -- Martin Perez can take one thing away from Monday night's 5-2 loss in the American League wild-card tiebreaker game.

There's no shame in losing to a former Cy Young Award winner like the Tampa Bay Rays' David Price.

Perez gave up an early run, allowed a two-run home run to Evan Longoria and didn't make it out of the sixth inning. It probably wasn't what the 22-year-old Perez was looking for.

But knowing that Perez fractured his forearm in spring training, didn't get to the big leagues for good until June and ended up winning six straight games in August and September, there's nothing but good things he can take away from this season.

Just listen to veteran catcher A.J. Pierzynski when asked about the pitch Perez made to Longoria in the third inning that catapulted the Rays to a 3-0 lead.

Perez got the ball where he wanted it -- down in the strike zone -- and Longoria, with a history of big hits late in the season, beat him.

"It wasn't a bad pitch," Pierzynski said. "[Longoria] just got his barrel on it. Martin made some good pitches in the first inning. The kid should be proud. I thought he pitched really well given the situation and given what he was facing for him being young.

"He's got a bright, bright future, and [I] hope that nobody looks at this game and gets down on him because that kid has a really good future. He's special, and he's only going to get better."

Perez was obviously disappointed after the game, regretting two walks in the early innings, both of which ended up as runs. The first inning was a mess in which he allowed three hits to go with the walk, but he got out of it allowing only the one run on Delmon Young's sacrifice fly.

Perez will also look back on the season proud that he overcame his injury and became a candidate for the American League rookie of the year award after carrying the Rangers' rotation in August with five victories.

"They did give me an opportunity to pitch at this level, and I think I did a great job this year," Perez said. "I want to work hard to be a good pitcher in the future."

Perez needs only to look at Price for what going through a little adversity with a late-season loss can end up producing in future seasons.

Price beat the Rangers for just the second time in 12 starts. This wasn't a postseason game, but it felt like one, and Price's 0-3 record against the Rangers in the playoffs doesn't feel nearly as bad now.

Price was clearly emotional after the game. He took advantage of a pitcher-friendly strike zone and pitched the fifth complete game in the history of the tiebreaker game.

Price adjusted his pitching style by going more with his breaking pitches than his fastball, which was actually up around 96 miles per hour after being around 94 mph in his past few starts. The Rangers managed just six hits.

"He threw a lot of breaking pitches," Elvis Andrus said. "Before, he used to throw a lot of fastballs against us, and that's why we always hit well. Today, he made an adjustment and threw a ton of changeups and breaking balls when we were ahead. He was locating the pitches really good, too."

ARLINGTON, Texas -- Much will be made of the Texas Rangers' aggressive baserunning this season -- the pros and cons of it -- a style they've prided themselves on for all seven seasons Ron Washington has been the club's manager.

Monday night will not be a good memory.

The Rangers were picked off twice in the first three innings by David Price and lost 5-2 in the American League wild-card tiebreaker game. It brought the Rangers' season total to 111 outs given up on the bases.

Elvis Andrus was picked off first base in the first inning after a one-out walk when he scrambled back to first base on Price's throw over but had his hand blocked from the bag by first baseman James Loney's foot.

Ian Kinsler was also caught stealing when Price picked him off first base. Kinsler ended the inning by making an out in a rundown.

"Elvis got blocked by Loney," Kinsler said of Andrus' first-inning mistake. "It was 0-2 on [Alex] Rios [when Kinsler was picked off in the third inning], so I was going to try to take the bag there and either let Rios drive me in or let him start the next inning off. And I got caught. It was early in the game, and I was trying to take a chance there.

"Those two plays weren't [Price's pickoff] move. They were circumstances of the game."

This doesn't mean this should be open season on the Rangers' running game. There's no way they would have gotten to Game 163 without their ability to turn singles into doubles by the stolen base. Or scoring key runs from second base on infield hits.

The Rangers had six players with at least 15 stolen bases, and both Rios (42 steals) and Andrus (41) could be potential 50-steal guys next season.

The Rangers went on a seven-game tear to end the season just to get into Monday night's game against the Tampa Bay Rays. Without the power threat of the past, they had to stay aggressive on the bases.

It just worked against them for the first time in a week.

"That's the way we play," Washington said. "Sometimes, that's the result of it, but if everything would have worked the way we wanted it to when they decided to steal, it would have been nice. It just didn't work that way. That's what you have to put up with when you are aggressive. We're a very aggressive team, and we never stop."

Heading into the final few games of the season, I heard an interview with Joe Maddon where he was asked what it will take for the Rays to get through these next few games and into the postseason.

Part of his response: "You need your best players to perform." (Or something of that ilk.)

The two best players in this tiebreaker game were David Price and Evan Longoria, especially with Yu Darvish having pitched Sunday for the Rangers and Adrian Beltre playing on a sore hamstring. We spend a lot of time these days breaking down everything that goes into a baseball game, and that's fun and informative and interesting, and dissecting all the numbers and strategies and potential strategies are part of what makes baseball so appealing to many of us.

But sometimes the analysis is simple. Sometimes you just need your best players to perform. Price was outstanding, Longoria homered with one of his three hits, and the Rays beat the Rangers 5-2 to keep their season alive.

For Price, he exorcised some personal demons of sorts. He had defeated the Rangers just once in 11 career starts, including three postseason starts. His career ERA in Texas was over 10.00 in four games. He wasn't necessarily dominant, striking out just four in throwing a complete game. He had pretty good command of his fastball, however, and basically challenged the Rangers to hit it. He threw fastballs on 73 of his 118 pitches, and while the Rangers swung and missed at just one fastball all game, they didn't do any severe damage against it, or at least not enough damage. (Price actually induced just four swing-and-misses the entire game.)

The Rangers didn't exactly throw out a strong lineup. With Jeff Baker sidelined with a sports hernia, Ron Washington's starting nine included three lefties -- Price held left-handed batters to a .195 average with just two home runs -- and two of those, Leonys Martin and Mitch Moreland, are pretty weak against lefties. Nelson Cruz hadn't played in two months due to his suspension, Beltre hurt his hamstring on Sunday and Elvis Andrus had just 25 extra-base hits on the season. It was a game where the Rangers shouldn't have expected to score many runs.

It didn't help that Andrus got picked off in the first inning and Ian Kinsler got picked off in the third. Washington had apparently stressed to his club to play aggressive, but in the end those were two costly mistakes.

Once the Rays took a 4-2 lead, the key at-bat against Price came in the eighth after Kinsler doubled down the third-base line with one out. Price was over 100 pitches, and you could have expected to see Joel Peralta in the game to face the right-handed threesome of Andrus, Alex Rios and Beltre. Peralta was warming up, but he can be a little home run-prone (seven home runs) and Maddon might have been thinking of the four outings in September where Peralta allowed two or more runs.

Sometimes you just go with your best.

Andrus laid down a near-perfect bunt down the first-base line on an 0-1 pitch, but Price made a terrific play (especially for a lefty), flipping the ball with his glove to first to get Andrus. Rios grounded out to shortstop to end the threat. What if Andrus had hit away? We'll never know, which is the beauty of "what if" in baseball. With a little more cushion after Sam Fuld created a run in the top of the ninth, Maddon let Price begin the bottom of the ninth. Why not? One-two-three, game over.

As for Longoria, he lined a single to right-center in the first inning off rookie lefty Martin Perez to send Wil Myers to third; Myers would score on Delmon Young's sac fly. In the third, Perez faced Longoria with two outs and a runner on first. Longoria took an inside 94 mph fastball and drilled it into the wind tunnel in right-center, just clearing the fence for a two-run homer.

I can't really fault Washington too much in this game. His bullpen had been worked hard in the final few days (although he inexplicably used closer Joe Nathan for a fourth straight game on Sunday to close out a 6-2 lead), and while you could argue for a Matt Garza or Alexi Ogando earlier in the game, Garza hasn't been good and Ogando started on Friday.

Perez settled down after the Longoria home run, and Washington correctly yanked him with one out in the sixth when Longoria came up again. Ogando just didn't have much in this game. Longoria doubled off him, and with two outs, pinch hitter David DeJesus doubled him home (you could argue that Neal Cotts should have been brought in there).

In the end, the Rays are the better team. The AL East was easily the best division in the majors this year and the Rangers made it this far in large part due to their 17-2 record against the lowly Astros, an opponent the Rays didn't get to face 19 times.

Now the Rays get the Indians, and while the game will be in Cleveland, the Rays have to like their chances with the underrated Alex Cobb, who went 11-3 with a 2.76 ERA in 22 starts, on the mound. Cobb throws an excellent changeup that dives away from left-handed hitters -- they hit .214/.245/.325 off it -- but he changed the grip on his curveball last summer and it's given him a second out pitch alongside the changeup. Cobb learned the grip from former teammate James Shields and batters have hit .260 off it, but with just one home run in 100 at-bats.

The Rays will face another rookie in hard-throwing Danny Salazar, who has made 10 career starts, but averages 96 mph on his fastball and has reached 100. The Indians have held him to tight pitch counts, going more than 89 pitches just once and held under 80 in five of his starts, so Terry Francona will likely tell Salazar to cut it loose for as long as he can go and turn it into a bullpen game early on.

Thanks to Price, Maddon will also enter with a rested bullpen, so there should be plenty of pitching changes and possible pinch-hitting moves to discuss and argue about.

Of course, it could be that it will come down to the best player. The Indians are good and they're hot, having won 10 in a row, but Longoria will once again be the best player in this game.

FYI: He's hit 22 of his 32 home runs off fastballs.

ARLINGTON, Texas -- In the aftermath of Monday's 5-2 loss in the American League wild-card tiebreaker game, Elvis Andrus found himself second-guessing a decision to bunt for a base hit while representing the tying run in the bottom of the eighth.

Andrus was batting with one out after Ian Kinsler smoked a double into the left-field corner. The Rangers trailed 4-2 and had Nos. 3 and 4 hitters Alex Rios and Adrian Beltre coming up after Andrus.

Andrus tried to push a bunt past Tampa Bay Rays starter David Price, but it didn't spin enough toward the first-base line, allowing the Rays pitcher to glove the ball and flip it to first for the second out of the inning. Rios grounded out to shortstop to end the threat and the Rangers' best chance to tie the game.

Tampa Bay stole a run in the top of the ninth when Sam Fuld stole third and scored on Tanner Scheppers' errant throw. The Rangers went 1-2-3 in the bottom of the ninth with Nelson Cruz making the final out.

Andrus was asked after the game why he bunted.

"I don't know actually," Andrus said. "I'm still thinking about it. I'm still mad at myself right now, especially in that situation, facing that guy. I feel great, and I guess I saw the big picture: me getting on base and getting a big inning. I learned from that, for sure. I know what to do next time it happens."

Andrus probably wouldn't have been questioning himself during the first half of the season when he struggled offensively. Bunting might have been his best decision.

But he was dynamic after the All-Star break. He was a catalyst for the Rangers' offense, batting .314 with 36 RBIs and 40 runs scored.

Andrus said no one questioned his decision when he got back to the dugout.

"They know that I always play for the team and play to win the game," Andrus said.

ARLINGTON, Texas -- The Texas Rangers' charge to the playoffs at the end of the season was stopped by the team they eliminated from the postseason in 2010 and 2011, the Tampa Bay Rays.

The Rays outplayed the Rangers on Monday night in the American League wild-card tiebreaker game for a 5-2 victory at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington.

Tampa Bay got the clutch home run, ran the bases better and played a flawless game in the field to move on to Wednesday's AL wild-card game against the Cleveland Indians.

Oh no, Longo: The Rays' Evan Longoria is at his best late in the season. He did it again Monday night, giving the Rays a 3-0 lead in the top of the third with a long two-run home run to right-center field that just got over the glove of Leonys Martin. Longoria also had a one-out double in the top of the sixth and scored on pinch hitter David DeJesus's RBI single to give the Rays a 4-1 lead.

Rangers get on board: Craig Gentry led off the bottom of the third with a single. With Gentry running, Martin grounded out to third base to give the Rangers a runner in scoring position. Ian Kinsler then lined a single into center field to cut the Rays' lead to 3-1.

Rios comes through: Alex Rios continued his torrid play late in the season, scolding a double off the left-field fence to score Elvis Andrus and cut the Rays' lead back to two runs at 4-2.

Baserunning mistakes: The Rangers upped their season total to a brutal 111 outs on the bases by getting picked off first base twice by David Price, who isn't known for having a great move. First, it was Andrus in the bottom of the first after drawing a one-out walk. After Kinsler drove in the Rangers' first run, he got picked off first base on a nice move by Price.

Perez's night: Rookie Martin Perez made his first postseason start, and while it wasn't the exact result he was looking for, he did keep the Rangers in the game for the first five innings. Perez allowed four runs in 5⅓ innings and was taken out after 74 pitches for Alexi Ogando, who gave up the single to DeJesus to give the Rays a three-run lead.

Leonys gets the call: The Rangers were the recipients of a very gracious call from left-field umpire Bruce Dreckman with two outs in the top of the seventh. With two runners on, Delmon Young sent a sinking line drive into center field that Martin made a diving attempt for in front of him. The ball actually one-hopped its way into Martin's glove, but Dreckman made the out call much to the chagrin of Rays manager Joe Maddon.

Cruz's night: Nelson Cruz played for the first time since his 50-game suspension and went 0-for-3 with a strikeout. Cruz almost changed the direction of the game in the second inning. With the Rangers trailing 1-0 and Adrian Beltre on second after a leadoff double, Cruz worked a 2-2 count and hit a screaming line drive that Rays first baseman James Loney snared. Cruz led off the bottom of the fifth with a grounder to third. He led off the seventh with a swinging strikeout on a full count.

Price goes nine: Price finally got over his curse of the Rangers. He worked a strong complete game and allowed two runs. Price came into the start with an 0-3 postseason record and a 10.26 ERA at Rangers Ballpark. But he had none of that on Monday night. Yes, he got a favorable strike zone from plate umpire Jeff Kellogg, who did have an impact on the game, but Price took advantage of it and allowed six hits and walked only one.

ARLINGTON, Texas -- Rangers manager Ron Washington isn't planning on having a quick hook for 22-year-old starter Martin Perez in Monday's American League wild-card tiebreaker game.

But he has plenty of arms to turn to if needed.

Washington said all of his pitchers, including starters Alexi Ogando, Matt Garza and Derek Holland, are available to come out of the bullpen in Game 163, an elimination game, against the Tampa Bay Rays. Yu Darvish is the only pitcher who won't be used.

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Nolan Ryan joins Galloway and Company to discuss having Nelson Cruz back in the lineup and how the Rangers are feeling heading into their wild-card play-in game against the Rays. Listen

Ogando is the most likely to be the first starter used because of his experience pitching out of the bullpen. Washington said he'll just flow with the game and base his decision on how far to go with Perez on how his innings are going.

"It just depends on what is happening," Washington said. "If he has issues in the first inning, it could be the first inning. If he has issues in the fifth inning, it could be the fifth. It could be the second, the third. We just have to see what scenario is being played out there."

Washington said he'll work with his complete bullpen Monday night. The Rangers' pen has dominated during their seven-game winning streak, allowing one run in 20 1/3 innings. They have 27 strikeouts.

Setup man Tanner Scheppers has thrown 36 pitches while throwing four straight days, so his low count helps. Closer Joe Nathan also has pitched four straight days and he's available for the elimination game.

Keeping his pitch count down has been huge for Scheppers.

"It helps him to allow us to use him," Washington said. "He comes in and pounding the strike zone. What Joe's been doing after Scheppers has been outstanding."

Scheppers said there's no stopping now and that he'll be ready.

"It doesn't matter anymore," Scheppers said. "You can't be down for (Game) 163."

Put Gentry in ink: Nelson Cruz's return to the Rangers' lineup as the designated hitter means that Washington was able to keep Craig Gentry in at left field, which is good because Gentry is the Rangers' hottest hitter with 17 hits in his last 36 at-bats. He wasn't coming out for anyone.

"I never thought about taking Gentry out of there," Washington said.

Wash on Price: Rays starter David Price, the reigning AL Cy Young winner, has not pitched well against the Rangers. He has a 10.26 ERA in Arlington and has lost all three postseason starts against Texas.

If the Rangers have a secret, they're not revealing it. "I can't give you that," Washington said. "It's something that happened."

Washington said the Rangers have the utmost respect for Price, who is 9-8 with a 3.39 ERA this season.

"We're certainly not that confident that we're going to go out there and destroy Price because of what we've done in the past," Washington said. "It's Sept. 30, 2013 and this is a different time and a different day. We just have to go out there and continue to play our game and see what happens.

"Believe me, there's no one in this clubhouse taking Price lightly."

Short hops: Injured pitcher Colby Lewis, the Rangers' best all-time postseason pitcher, will throw out the first pitch before Monday's game. He'll also be in uniform for the game. Washington said that Lewis and Matt Harrison will accompany the Rangers on the road if they make the postseason. ... The Rangers and Rays are the only teams in the major leagues with four straight seasons with 90-plus wins.