Texas has five games left and no margin for a tie. Here’s exactly what the Rangers need to do to beat Houston for the AL West crown.

ARLINGTON – The Texas Rangers’ path to the AL West title is brutally simple: finish one game better than the Houston Astros over the final five games.

Texas and Houston are tied atop the division entering Wednesday, but the Rangers don’t own the most important advantage in a deadlock. Houston won the season series 9-4, meaning the Astros hold the head-to-head tiebreaker.

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That takes a season-ending tie off the table for Texas.

If the Rangers and Astros finish with identical records, Houston wins the division. So Texas has to create separation.

The Rangers have two games remaining against the New York Mets at Globe Life Field before closing the regular season with three games on the road against the Minnesota Twins. Houston finishes Wednesday night’s series in Seattle before heading to face the Athletics for four games.

Here’s the math:

If Texas goes 5-0, Houston must finish 4-1 or worse.

If the Rangers go 4-1, the Astros must go 3-2 or worse.

A 3-2 Texas finish requires Houston to go 2-3 or worse.

If Texas stumbles to 2-3, Houston would have to collapse to 1-4 or worse.

And if the Rangers go just 1-4, they’d need the Astros to lose all five remaining games.

That makes Wednesday especially important. Texas faces the Mets while Houston plays Seattle. A Rangers win combined with an Astros loss would immediately give Texas the one-game cushion it needs.

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Rangers manager Skip Schumaker has spent much of September treating the stretch run with postseason urgency, and now there’s no reason to view it any differently.

Texas can’t count on the tiebreaker. It can’t afford to simply match Houston. And with only five games remaining, there’s almost no runway left to recover from mistakes.

The easiest formula is also the most obvious one: win as many games as possible and make Houston chase.

For the Rangers, October has essentially arrived early.