TODAY: A clear recovery timetable hasn’t yet been determined for Gray, but president of baseball operations Chris Young told Kennedi Landry and other media that Gray will indeed be out for an “extended time.” It will be at least six weeks before Gray is even cleared to start throwing, so it seems like Texas will be placing him on the 60-day IL at some point before Opening Day.
MARCH 14: Rangers starter Jon Gray sustained a broken right wrist during this evening’s Spring Training appearance, manager Bruce Bochy tells Evan Grant of The Dallas Morning News and other reporters. Gray was struck by a Michael Toglia line drive that had a 106.4 MPH exit velocity (video provided by Kennedi Landry of MLB.com).
Bochy didn’t provide specifics on a return timeline. Gray is obviously going to begin the season on the injured list and will probably be down for a while. It’s the worst of a handful of pitching injuries for Texas this spring. They announced just yesterday that presumptive fifth starter Cody Bradford was going to begin the season on the injured list after experiencing elbow soreness. An MRI came back clean, but the team is going to be cautious with any level of elbow pain.
Tyler Mahle was scratched from his start earlier this week with forearm soreness. Imaging didn’t reveal any problems and he’ll begin throwing in the coming days. Still, that may require a season-opening IL stint — especially since Mahle just returned from Tommy John surgery midway through 2024.
That placed a lot of emphasis on Jacob deGrom, Nathan Eovaldi and Gray to stay healthy. The season-opening rotation now likely comprises deGrom, Eovaldi, Kumar Rocker and Jack Leiter. Mahle would round out the group if he can avoid the IL. They otherwise could push expected long reliever Dane Dunning back into the rotation or turn to veteran ground-ball specialist Adrian Houser, who is in camp on a minor league deal. Houser has tossed eight innings of two-run ball with three strikeouts and walks apiece this spring. He allowed a near-6.00 ERA over 69 1/3 innings for the Mets last season.
The rotation’s durability is arguably the biggest question for Texas. deGrom and Eovaldi are 36 and 35, respectively. deGrom has made 35 starts over the last four years. Eovaldi has mostly been durable recently, but he has twice undergone Tommy John surgery in his career. Rocker underwent the same procedure in May 2023. He pitched fewer than 50 innings between the minors and his three-start MLB debut late last season.
Texas will probably look to add minor league rotation depth as veterans opt out of contracts with other teams in the coming weeks. It’s less likely that they’ll make an MLB signing. The Rangers were clear all offseason that they wanted to keep their luxury tax payroll below the $241MM base threshold. RosterResource projects them around $236MM at the moment. Salary acquired in-season via waivers or trade would add to that on a prorated basis. It’d be a surprise if ownership approves going beyond the tax line to sign a free agent starter like Spencer Turnbull or old friends Kyle Gibson and Lance Lynn. With less than two weeks until Opening Day, none of those pitchers are likely to be game ready for the start of the regular season.
So I guess he won’t be the closer?
Bowers should be starting to look really good to some of these teams whose pitchers are going down left and right.
Kyle Gibson to Texas lol
Gray rocking that long hair looks like an 80s rocker lol
Heard the crack in the video, that doesn’t sound pleasant.
Come get helsley and matz.
The Rangers can’t afford either pitcher, and stay under the luxury tax!!
What a bummer. Gray has been setting big goals this year, 200ip 200k. Probably impossible now. With Bradford and now Gray set to open the season on the IL, I wonder if Jack Leiter and Kumar Rocker opening the season in the rotation could be reality.
Rocker has been absolutely atrocious this spring!!!
But he was pretty good last year in his short stint in the majors. We can’t put too much emphasis on spring training outings.
I think both will now
I agree, bummer, I had the Rangers winning the AL West.
They have good rotational depth but Gray is a solid 2. Losing both Bradford and Gray is a little worrisome, but Dunning can eat innings.
Lance Lynn or Gibson.
“It’s the worst of a handful of pitching injuries for Texas this spring.” Yup, a broken hand will be that…
Watched this live and it was like FFF no!
It’s almost better to get the news second “hand” but jokes aside, watching it in real time always feels to weigh on us as fans more seemingly. Could be the realization that things are going to be bad but hoping against hope that it’s not.
Well time to suspend Toglia until Gray is healthy. Right? Right!?!?!?!?!?
Can a batter hit one right back at the pitcher if they feel like it?? I think for the most part that is hard to do.
But they’re professional hitters! They should know where it’s being hit
Not sure if that’s the case though. So much depends on how the pitch is thrown, when the bat hits the ball, too much uncertainty there…all the batter is trying to do is hit it as hard as he can.
Players don’t even get suspended for an injury’s duration when they cause it during a brawl.
He’s not being serious, you guys. He’s reversing what a lot of people say on here about how they think pitchers should be suspended for hitting batters.
Since when did dane dunning become an incapable pitcher ?
He can clearly fill in as the 5th til mahle makes it back
He can, and more than likely will join the rotation until Bradford returns!!
He was terrible last year
That looked nasty. Oooouuuuuccccchhhh!
That’s NOT going to happen, and you know it!!!
With the way the starters depth is withering away. The rotation should consist of DeGrom, Eovaldi, Dunning, Houser and Leiter according to how there spring training is going!! They should take their time with Mahle and Bradford to make sure they are good.
Mahle’s already pitched since taking a couple days off. He’s in a FA year so my guess is that both he and the team want to run him out there as much as possible.
I’m sure the likes of Lynn and Gibson have been throwing a bit but I’d look for someone in-house that is ramped up already instead of waiting a month or so for a free agent to get into game shape.
Seems like they could sign Turnbell to a well-structured deal that would keep them under the cap.
It kinda sucks if they are compelled to exceed the cap primarily due to paying players that got injured.
Ring up Turnbell. Or alternatively, give Turnbell a ring.
Kinda forced to take someone’s castoff at this point. Bad break.
@Crikes Absolutely. The Pads can’t wait to trade their ace for spare parts!
Every pitcher in this rotation carries a heightened probability of missing time, but more importantly, their injury risks are correlated in ways that multiply the problem. DeGrom, Eovaldi, and Mahle all have extensive injury histories, and now Gray (wrist fracture) and Rocker (TJ recovery) join the instability. This isn’t just bad luck—it’s systemic fragility.
I’d like to see an article on the amount of money each team wastes on players on the IL, unable to contribute to their teams.
An injury prone rotation already fulfilling their pronedness, with the season still 12 days away. Who’s next?
I mean, this wasn’t even his fault. A victim of bad luck.
You know what really grinds my gears? When someone on here is trying to put a player down and in an attempt to do so they bring up an element that is already baked into a stat that already cited and that stat still says that player is good. Like when they are trying to put down a Rockies player and they say “He only had a 105 OPS+ while playing half his games in Coors Field!” even though the Coors Field factor is already baked into OPS+. Or when someone is trying to put down Trevor Bauer, I bring up his ERA and they say “But he gave up 2 home runs to Alexi Amarista in one game!” even though the Amarista dingers are already baked into his ERA. That sort of thing.
Dang, Rockies fans continue to be Jon Gray supporters, and here’s hoping he heals and returns in top pitching form.
Joey Gallo is switching to pitching.
Let’s see what he’s got.