ARLINGTON — The Rangers were greeted by strange sights on Thursday. They walked into their clubhouse to find a mountain of presents in front of each player’s locker, courtesy of Josh Jung. A Solo Stove portable fire pit. A Yeti cooler and Yeti accessories. Earphones and earbuds so as not to irritate anybody’s lobes. Even a set of VR glasses.

It was, Jung said, all about creating a culture of unselfishness for the coming year.

Then they walked on to the field to stare into a blank space where a year ago, a huge banner was unfurled from the rafters to celebrate the first World Series title. When it unfurled, there was a wrinkle in it, which probably was some kind of sign about 2024, anyway. A smaller version has remained up in the left field corner along with other team accomplishments. Much more demure. Very mindful. All that jazz.

Nobody said anything about the banner. Didn’t need to. The message was clear: Live in the now.

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The past is dead and gone.

If you want to take anything of significance from opening day, those were the things that stood out. Opening day is about hype and pomp. Usually, there’s very little that is of season-long relevance. Well, except for maybe Nathan Eovaldi’s curveball, but more on that in a moment.

The Rangers lost to Boston, 5-2, when closer-of-the-moment Luke Jackson surrendered new Ranger Destroyer Wilyer Abreu’s second homer of the game in the ninth inning. Abreu hit a bases-empty homer in the third before his three-run ninth blast. It gives him six in 24 career at-bats against the Rangers. It’s almost like they telegraphed their pitching plans to him in a group chat.

Fans will be shook from a ninth-inning homer. Many are still scarred from the great Bullpen Mess of 2023, even though it ended in a parade. But, when it was all said and done, Bruce Bochy’s view wasn’t nearly as critical. The Rangers got great starting pitching from Eovaldi. He used his bullpen as he saw fit without being pushed into a corner. More often than not, if the Rangers play this exact game, they will win it. They will win because they will hurt the baseball.

“Oh, I’ll take my chances there,” Bochy said. “I think we are going to win most of those games. It didn’t happen today.”

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It didn’t happen because the Rangers didn’t slug. This team is set up to slug first and foremost. If it slugs, it’s going to take pressure off a rotation that has already had to reach into its depth, and it’s going to give the bullpen more margin for error. But against lefty Garrett Crochet, whose fastball metrics grade out as the best in the league among left-handers, slugging ain’t easy.

The Rangers managed seven hits, just one of them for extra bases. It’s an issue that is as old as the franchise. They’ve often been able to pummel the middle and back of a team’s rotation. Remember those great offenses of the ‘90s? The ones that throttled most of the AL, but were smothered by great Yankees pitching? Yeah, them. What’s that old saying about good pitching against good hitting? So much around baseball changes but that still seems to hold true.

“We had some opportunities that we let get away from us,” said new Ranger Jake Burger, who walked and scored the first run. “It’s a little frustrating, but that’s baseball sometimes. I feel confident that if we have this all year [pitching-wise], we’re going to be in a good spot.”

Against Crochet, they really only had one chance for a big inning and watched it melt away after the first three hitters each reached with Kevin Pillar singling home Burger. But Kyle Higashioka popped out and Josh Smith looked at strike three.

Eovaldi, meanwhile, was every bit as good against a Boston team that is expected to do its own fair share of slugging. After a tweak to his breaking ball during Wednesday’s workout day, he brought the curveball back into play. Hasn’t used as much the last couple of years, but threw it 22 times among his 87 pitches and got misses on 10 of those. High heat. Curve in the dirt. Nice formula. According to Statcast, it was the most whiffs he’s ever amassed on the pitch in a game. Led to nine strikeouts. No walks. No Ranger has ever had a strikeout-to-walk rate that extreme in an opener.

“I feel like I have a lot of weapons and I can utilize them in a lot of different ways,” Eovaldi said. “Pitching up in the zone and then using the curveball off that, I think helps funnel everything really well. And if I have my splitter, it should be even better. I should have good results out there. And I think today showed that.”

“That was vintage Nate,” is the way Bochy put it.

When you think about the possibility of a vintage Eovaldi to go along with a healthy Jacob deGrom, the sting of a season-opening loss doesn’t quite burn as much. Unless, of course, you scald yourself on that firepit your generous teammate gave you.

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