Right-hander Dane Dunning is going to be added to the Rangers’ roster, per Shawn McFarland of the Dallas Morning News. Fellow righty Caleb Boushley will be optioned to get Dunning onto the active roster but the club will need to make a corresponding move to open a 40-man roster spot. The club has not announced the moves yet.
Dunning, 30, was outrighted off the club’s 40-man roster just ahead of Opening Day. He had just wrapped up a tough spring showing, allowing 10 earned runs in 11 innings. He also had a pretty rough campaign in 2024. He posted a 5.31 ERA around some injured list stints last year. He had come into the season with a 4.16 career ERA, so that was a notable jump. Over the course of the season, he was bumped to the bullpen and also optioned to the minors for a while.
Since being outrighted, he’s been pitching out of the rotation for Triple-A Round Rock. He has a 5.40 ERA across five starts for that club, pitching in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League. His 22.6% strikeout rate and 9.7% walk rate are both close to average but he has allowed four home runs, a rate of 17.4% per fly ball.
He’s likely ticketed for a long relief role with the big league club. The Rangers have Jacob deGrom, Nathan Eovaldi, Tyler Mahle, Patrick Corbin and Jack Leiter making up their current rotation. The team has completed six contests in a 13-game stretch without an off-day, leading to heavy bullpen usage. Of their eight relievers, all of them have pitched at least twice in the past six days. Luke Jackson, Chris Martin and Robert Garcia have each pitched in three of the past four days.
With the staff fairly gassed, Dunning will provide manager Bruce Bochy with a guy who could potentially take a few innings of mop-up duty. Dunning tossed 5 1/3 innings in his most recent outing, which was on Thursday. He still has an option remaining, so he can be optioned back down to Round Rock whenever the need for a fresh arm arises again.
Photo courtesy of William Purnell, Imagn Images
Ugh… with the struggling offense and all I was still enjoying the season and RSN. Based on the last week I thought they finally gave Murphy the boot. But no, his boring commentary there to bland out baseball and give the worst low hanging takes ever. Please just let Bacsik do the games, or ya know hire someone with a pulse besides him.
And you like Dave Raymond?
Gentle Bob, I mean he’s not Vin Scully. But who is? Raymond is intelligent and that works great with Bacsiks arlington:baseball love vibe. Thank god it’s not “My three Daves” anymore as Valle was just horrifying. But Murphy muat be for the elderly metroplex ranger lifers but RSN should focus on new younger fans. Honestly RSN almost got it right with the radio peeps opening and closing the show. They should’ve just let them do the whole game on both tv and radio. Sandler and Nadel are genuinely amazing. lol Emily jones is back tonight. Ugh. Murph and her sound like a drunk convo at Applebees.