The Rangers announced that left-hander Robert Garcia has been placed on the 15-day injured list, retroactive to April 20th, with left shoulder inflammation. Right-hander Peyton Gray has been selected to take his place on the roster. To open a 40-man spot for Gray, catcher Willie MacIver has been designated for assignment.
Garcia’s last appearance was on April 16th, a game he departed due to shoulder soreness. He and the Rangers opted not to put him on the IL immediately. It appears that a week of rest hasn’t allowed him to fully heal up, so the team has now put him on the shelf. An IL placement can be backdated if a player hasn’t been playing but there’s a three-day maximum, so the Rangers could only backdate it to Monday.
His injury will allow Gray to crack a major league roster for the first time, which is a nice story. As laid out by Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News in March, Gray spent time pitching in the minors and independent ball, in addition to winter ball stints in Mexico and the Dominican Republic. Along the way, he worked for UPS, DoorDash and cut trees. He’s now going to the show just ahead of his 31st birthday, which will be in June.
Gray came into camp with the Rangers on a minor league deal. He turned some heads with a solid spring. He tossed 10 2/3 innings, allowing three earned runs via six hits and one walk while striking out 18. He has reported to Triple-A and has continued to put up good numbers. He has thrown 12 2/3 scoreless innings over seven appearances, allowing eight hits and two walks while striking out 15. Last year, he also gave the Rangers 61 Triple-A innings with a 3.84 earned run average, 25.8% strikeout rate, 8.7% walk rate and 43.5% ground ball rate.
This year, he’s mostly a fastball/changeup guy. His fastball, which is averaging 92.9 miles per hour, has been thrown 48.8% of the time this year. His 83.2 mile-per-hour change has made up 40.7% of his offerings. He has also mixed in a cutter and a slider. He’ll see if that recipe works on major-league hitters whenever he makes his major league debut.
MacIver, 29, was claimed off waivers from the Athletics in November. He’s been in Triple-A this year and is off to a rough start, with a .170/.333/.255 line through 60 plate appearances. He’ll now head into DFA limbo, which can last as long as a week. The waiver process takes 48 hours, so Texas could take five days to explore trade interest, but they could also put him on waivers at any point before then.
His major league track record is limited and unimpressive. He got into 33 games for the A’s last year and hit .186/.252/.324 in those. He has shown the potential for more in the minors. Over 2024 and 2025, he slashed .323/.399/.534 in 604 Triple-A plate appearances. He is off to a much slower start this year but perhaps his track record enough to generate interest from other clubs. He still has options remaining and could be stashed in the minors as depth, as the Rangers were doing in recent weeks.
Since MacIver has less than three years of service time and doesn’t have a previous career outright, he would not have the right to elect free agency in the event he clears outright waivers. The Rangers might want that situation to come to pass since Danny Jansen and Kyle Higashioka are now the only two catchers on the 40-man roster.
Photo courtesy of Arianna Grainey, Imagn Images
MacIver always up for assignments. Saw him disarm 8 guards at an East German women’s prison once with nothing more than a paper clip, blow up a pillbox with a sliver of powdered gravy and then comandeer one of those motorcycle sidecars with the commandant’s bulldog still inside
Peyton Gray – heck of a story
Nooooooooooo willieeeeeeeeeeeeeee