ARLINGTON -- The Rangers will finish out June on Saturday with the most timely and appropriate promotion of the season.

They will give out bobbleheads featuring Rougned Odor on top of Smokey, the horse that helped seal the six-year, $49 million contract between the player and the team.

It is timely because Odor has only recently gotten back up on the proverbial horse and is back in the saddle again.

As he heads into the final day of the month, it's not entirely implausible to look at June 2018, and consider it a career-rescuing moment. The longer the month has dragged on, the more multi-dimensional Odor has looked. The Rangers haven't looked all that bad either. Thanks to Friday's 11-3 win over Chicago, they are 13-11 as they head into the final day of the month.

"I am proud of myself," Odor said even before he went 2 for 5 Friday. "All the work I've been doing in practice is starting to come into games. I am focusing on every pitch on offense and defense."

It is showing. A sampling:

* He has bunted and turned his feet into a weapon again, compiling three of his five bunt singles for the year in June. He's also stolen a pair of bases successfully within the last week after starting the season a dreadful 1 for 6 in that category.

* He has started to drive the ball again; his second-inning homer Friday was his third in the last 10 days. The homer started a seven-run inning, the Rangers biggest of the year. It included a pair of three-run homers. Odor also singled in his second at-bat of the inning.

"He's not missing pitches he can drive," Rangers manager Jeff Banister said. "He's put a lot of work in trying to zone in on that."

* And he has played smooth defense, going error free in 29 games (28 starts) at second since May 24. It is the second-longest error-free stretch in a season in his career behind a 32-game (31 starts) streak to end his first year (2014) in the majors.

"He got to a point where he felt like he needed to make some changes," Banister said. "I don't think there was a singular moment of epiphany. The game has a way of letting you know you need to make some adjustments along the way."

This is what the game let him know as he entered the month: He had the second-lowest WAR in the majors since the start of 2017. On top of that, Jurickson Profar had outplayed him in the middle of the infield and Elvis Andrus was about to return from the disabled list, which was going to put a premium on playing time.

Doing things the way he'd wanted for a season and a third had gotten him nowhere. If possible, he'd regressed off a truly awful 2017 season.

If there is an answer to what he's done better, he's worked harder and tried "easier."

He has spent almost every day on the field early working with instructor Tony Beasley on his first step and his footwork to improve his defense. On offense, he's lightened his load a little, bouncing more to the plate and swinging a little easier rather than the stalk, stare and swing mightily approach he's carried since the start of last year.

"I was forcing things," Odor said. "I was trying to force where I wanted the ball to go. I'm just trying to hit the ball hard, just meet the ball and make hard contact. I'm not trying to do too much. I'm focused on trying to find my pitch to hit and not swinging at the other pitches. I've focused my mind on what I want to do."

The Rangers have been waiting for this since they gave him that horse a year ago.

Suddenly, Odor is giving them hope it wasn't such a bad horse trade after all.

Twitter: @Evan_P_Grant