The Rangers announced that they have selected right-hander Dane Dunning to their roster. Fellow righty Caleb Boushley has been optioned as the corresponding active roster move. The 40-man roster already had a vacancy.
The Rangers have been running a four-man rotation in recent weeks, having lost both Nathan Eovaldi and Tyler Mahle to the injured list. Behind starters Jacob deGrom, Jack Leiter, Kumar Rocker and Patrick Corbin, the club has had Boushley and Jacob Latz serving as multi-inning relievers. Leiter started yesterday and only lasted four innings, with Boushley getting the final four. The club lost on the road, meaning the bottom of the ninth didn’t need to be played.
Boushley likely wasn’t going to be available for a few days, so he’ll be swapped out. Corbin is taking the ball tonight but there’s likely going to be some sort of bullpen game tomorrow. The club then has deGrom likely to go on Wednesday with an off-day on Thursday and Eovaldi potentially returning after that. But in the meantime, they are still limping for a few more days and could need guys like Latz and Dunning to soak up some innings over the next few days.
Dunning, 30, has had some decent seasons for the Rangers but his results have backed up over the past year or so. He got bumped to the bullpen last year and has been bouncing off and on the roster this year. That’s due to the fact that he’s making a $2.66MM salary this year, which is preventing other clubs from claiming him off waivers. As a player with between three and five years of major league service time, he can reject an outright assignment but would have to forfeit his remaining salary commitments in order to do so. Twice this year, he has been passed through waivers and then accepted an outright assignment to Round Rock.
The club’s current pitching predicament will get him back to the majors yet again. He has just three big league innings pitched on the year, spending most of this time with Round Rock. For the Express, he has thrown 46 1/3 innings over 12 appearances with a 4.77 earned run average, 24.4% strikeout rate, 9% walk rate and 46.8% ground ball rate.
Photo courtesy of William Purnell, Imagn Images
Stunning Dane Dunning Rides Again!
I’ll admit it. For reasons not even known to me, I thought Dane was going to be a terrific pitcher in MLB. Not Greg Maddux or Clayton Kershaw, but maybe like a righty Cole Hamels.
You weren’t the only one, Mike Rizzo took him with the 29th pick in 2016,
Dunning is a good pitcher, he has pitched good innings in MLB, Rangers are going to trade Mahle.
Another Nats 1st round draft pick (2016) that never paid off.
Dunning was a big part of the 2023 championship team. Would like to see him get back to that level of pitching.