HOUSTON -- As the losses pile up at an alarming rate for the Rangers, the causes start to run together.

One night, it's a bullpen blowup (see Tuesday's 8-7 loss to Houston, as one example). Another, it's bunches of errors (see Monday's 6-2 loss). Oh, and there have been days when the starting pitching hasn't measured up either.

One constant, despite the fact the Rangers hit a lot of home runs and score a lot of runs: Offensive inconsistency.

And as manager Jeff Banister said way back on Sunday: "Sometimes when your offense plays well, it does cover up some of those other parts of the game. When your offense doesn't play well -- and we're not putting it all on the offense -- however when you're challenged offensively, other parts of the game, when they do show up, it does accentuate those. We need to go back to getting the ball to the middle of the field, have tough at-bats."

So what's wrong with the offense?

Here are five things that stick out:

They are chasing far too many pitches outside of the zone: Tough at-bats begin with forcing pitchers to throw strikes. Plainly put, the Rangers aren't doing that. According to fangraphs.com, the Rangers are swinging at 31.7 percent of pitches outside of the strike zone. It's tied with Atlanta for the third highest in baseball. Pitchers have stopped throwing them four-seam fastballs and the Rangers continue to swing. They've seen the fifth-lowest percentage of what are typically elevated fastballs (31.4 percent) in the majors.

Boy, do they miss Adrian Beltre: No offense to Joey Gallo, who leads the team in home runs and has really taken strides forward as an offensive player, but, if healthy, Beltre would anchor the No. 4 spot in the lineup. Right now, that spot is a big giant vacuum where run-scoring opportunities go to die. The Rangers have split the No. 4 spot between Mike Napoli, who has never gotten on track, and Rougned Odor, who has fallen off a hitting cliff since the first week of the season. They enter Wednesday with a .515 OPS in No. 4 spot, 29th in the majors.

Speaking of Rougned Odor: Pitchers threw him fastballs in the zone in the first week of the season. Odor smashed them. Pitchers made a quick adjustment. Fewer fastballs and lots fewer pitches near the hitting zone. He has not responded with a similar adjustment. He just keeps swinging away, trying to yank pitches way off the outside corner of the plate into the right field seats. The results have been disastrous. Since the start of the second week of the season, Odor ranks last in the AL in batting average (.145), OBP (.193) and OPS (.422). And right now he's hitting fourth!

And speaking of Mike Napoli: Perhaps the biggest concern in the offense right now is Napoli. He finished last year in a deep slump with Cleveland and his first month this year has mirrored his last month last year. For his last 286 plate appearances, about a half a season's worth, dating back to August 15 of last year, he's hitting .160 with a .274 OBP and 81 strikeouts in 243 at-bats. Among 180 players with at least 200 plate appearances in that span, only Brandon Moss has a lower batting average. Napoli's OPS of .570 is the fifth lowest. Consider the last two days: He had a pair of hits, including a homer to dead center Monday to give a bit of optimism, then he struck out in all four at-bats Tuesday. He hasn't gained any real momentum in terms of results.

It's an all-or-nothing offense: The Rangers scored seven runs Tuesday, all on home runs. Seven runs should usually be enough to win you a game, but that's another story. But the Rangers could have had more. They were 0 for 5 with runners in scoring position. They had the tying run at second base in the ninth inning with one out and they couldn't score him. Which leads us to this: The Rangers have scored a runner from third base who reached the base with less than two outs 16 times this season, second lowest in the majors. Now, granted the number of runners to reach third with less than two outs is low, too (37). But so is the percentage of execution (43 percent) which is 26th in the majors. This is kind of appalling: They have one sacrifice fly. They are not adding on important runs when they have a chance.