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Rangers Select Caleb Boushley

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The Rangers announced a series of roster moves today. Infielder Josh Jung has been activated from the 10-day injured list and the club has also selected the contract of right-hander Caleb Boushley. To open active roster spots for those two, the club optioned infielder/outfielder Ezequiel Durán and right-hander Gerson Garabito. To open a 40-man spot for Boushley, left-hander Cody Bradford was transferred to the 60-day injured list.

The pitching moves appear to be motivated by recent usage. The Rangers used seven of their eight relievers over the weekend, most of them pitching twice. Garabito was the only member of the bullpen to not pitch in the Friday-Sunday series against the Rays. Yesterday, Nathan Eovaldi was pulled after 4 2/3 innings, with Garabito covering the final 3 1/3 as the Rangers lost 7-0 to the Cubs at Wrigley.

Garabito threw 51 pitches in the process and was likely going to be unavailable for a few days. Instead of proceeding without a long man, the club has tagged in Boushley to take on that job for now. The 31-year-old Boushley signed a minor league deal with the Rangers in the offseason. He posted a 3.27 earned run average in the spring and has a 2.08 ERA in his first two Triple-A starts to begin the year.

His major league track record is fairly minimal. He has only appeared in three big league games, though his debut was a memorable one. He was called up by Milwaukee late in September, with the Brewers having already clinched the National League Central. He pitched the final 2 1/3 innings of a ten-inning walk-off victory, earning the W and a post-game sport-drink shower. He also pitched twice for the Twins last year. He currently has a 4.26 ERA in 6 1/3 innings. In the minors, dating back to the start of 2021, he has a 4.66 ERA in 521 2/3 innings with a 19% strikeout rate and 6.9% walk rate.

Boushley still has options, so he could perhaps be shuttled to Triple-A and back throughout the year, if the Rangers want to keep him available as a long relief guy who can be called upon when needed. In the short term, he’s on hand in the big leagues and will be on hand if they need mop-up work.

They had a spot available on the 40-man due to Bradford’s status. He started the season on the 15-day injured list due to some soreness in his throwing elbow. In the middle of March, the team said he would be shut down for four weeks. Even if he’s healthy at some point in the second half of April, he’ll need to effectively restart his spring ramp-up. This transfer makes him ineligible to be activated until late May at the earliest.

Photo courtesy of Joe Camporeale, Imagn Images

Rangers Place Josh Jung On Injured List

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The Rangers announced this afternoon that they’ve placed third baseman Josh Jung on the 10-day injured list due to neck spasms. The move is retroactive to March 29, meaning that Jung will first be eligible for activation on April 7. Infielder Jonathan Ornelas was recalled from the minors in a corresponding move.

It’s surely a frustrating turn of a events for Jung, as the 27-year-old was looking to get off to a strong start this year after having his 2024 season derailed by a fractured wrist on April 1 of last year. This year, he won’t even make it to April without being placed on the shelf. As worrisome a sign as that may be, all indications from team officials have suggested Jung’s current ailment is not a particularly serious one. As noted by Shawn McFarland of the Dallas Morning News, manager Bruce Bochy indicated to reporters that he expects that Jung will require only a minimum stay on the injured list.

Jung’s latest trip to the injured list doesn’t seem to be especially indicative of the severity of his neck problem, as the club was viewing him as day-to-day as recently as yesterday (as noted by MLB.com’s Kennedi Landry). The decision to place Jung on the shelf, it seems stems not from Jung’s own injury but rather an issue utility man Josh Smith is suffering from. Smith was playing third base during yesterday’s game but, as noted by McFarland, left the game with a left quad contusion after colliding with the wall in foul territory. Smith is currently considered day-to-day, but is out of the lineup today due to the issue.

With both Jung and Smith down for the time being, the Rangers felt they needed additional conver on the infield, prompting them to place Jung on the shelf so they could bring Ornelas up to the majors. The 24-year-old has just 26 games under his belt in the majors over the past two years and offers little offensive upside, but is a strong defender all around the infield with the speed to steal 15 bases in a season. Ornelas can fill a utility role for the club while Ezequiel Duran and (when healthy enough to return to the lineup) Smith cover for Jung at first base.

Losing Jung, the club’s selection with the eighth-overall pick in the 2019 draft, stings for the lineup. The 27-year-old enjoyed a breakout campaign in 2023 where he was named an All-Star and finished fourth in AL Rookie of the Year voting. Since the start of that season, Jung has slashed a strong .267/.311/.454 across 170 games in the majors and was off to a hot start this year with three hits in his first seven at-bats. Fortunately, Smith should be a perfectly adequate replacement once he’s back in the lineup, as he had a breakout season of his own last year, hitting .258/.337/.394 in 592 trips to the plate while serving in a super-utility role. Smith’s versatility and solid bat even earned him the AL Silver Slugger award for utility players last year, and he figures to once again fill a similar role in 2025.

Rangers Notes: deGrom, Seager, Carter, Jung

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Rangers right-hander Jacob deGrom is enjoying the first fully healthy offseason he’s had in quite some time after returning from rehab for Tommy John surgery back in September. As noted by Shawn McFarland of the Dallas Morning News, deGrom spoke to reporters about his outlook headed into the 2025 season and revealed that he’s begun throwing off the mound early this winter. The veteran hopes that building up towards pitching in games more slowly over a longer period of time than he has in the past will help him to stay healthy this season.

The 36-year-old is perhaps the very best pitcher in the entire sport when healthy, but maintaining his health has been a struggle over the past half decade. After winning back-to-back NL Cy Young awards with the Mets in 2018 and ’19 and finishing third during the shortened 2020 season, deGrom got off to an unbelievable start in 2021 with a 1.08 ERA and an eye-popping 45.1% strikeout rate. Unfortunately, he was sidelined in early July with forearm and elbow issues that ultimately ended his season. It’s been more of the same ever since, with deGrom making increasingly brief appearances in the majors each year but nonetheless continuing to dominate whenever he’s on the mound.

Since the start of the 2021 season, deGrom has pitched to a 2.01 ERA (200 ERA+) with a 1.63 FIP and 307 strikeouts in 197 1/3 innings. That would be on a shortlist for the greatest pitching seasons of all time if it hadn’t taken deGrom parts of four seasons to accumulate those numbers, and after watching Jordan Montgomery and Max Scherzer depart from their rotation in back-to-back offseasons the Rangers are surely hoping that they’ll get to see what deGrom can do over a full slate of starts this year. That’s something deGrom is fully on board with, as he told reporters (including McFarland) yesterday that his goal is to make 30 starts this year.

While McFarland notes that deGrom has not yet spoken to Rangers brass about his workload for 2025, the idea of a pitcher with deGrom’s injury history making 30 starts can’t be entirely dismissed. After all, southpaw Garrett Crochet made 32 starts with the White Sox last year despite not having pitched more than 65 innings in a season throughout college and his entire professional career due to injuries and time spent in the bullpen. The White Sox made that possible by aggressively managing his innings throughout the second half. He never recorded an out in the fifth inning this year after the calendar flipped to July and his pitch count maxed out at 77 after the All-Star break. Crochet, of course, is more than a decade younger than deGrom, but this sort of aggressive innings management could allow the Rangers to utilize their ace all throughout the regular season and into the playoffs without him needing to throw anything close to 200 innings.

deGrom isn’t the only key player for the Rangers who is hoping for better health in 2024. McFarland relays that third baseman Josh Jung, outfielder Evan Carter, and shortstop Corey Seager are all healthy and ready for Spring Training next month after undergoing surgeries in the fall. Seager underwent sports hernia surgery back in September but resumed baseball activities in November, while Jung and Carter are on a slightly more delayed timeline after undergoing wrist and back surgery respectively in October.

That trio being healthy and effective in 2025 would be a huge boon for the Rangers who failed to defend their 2023 World Series title in the 2024 postseason in large part thanks to a lackluster offense. Rangers hitters produced a collective wRC+ of just 95 last year as Seager was limited to 123 games by injuries while Jung and Carter managed just 46 and 45 games respectively. Seager remained as effective as ever when healthy enough to take the field with a .278/.353/.521 slash line in 533 trips to the plate, but Jung (102 wRC+) and especially Carter (80 wRC+) struggled to keep up with their expected production even when they were on the field due to the nagging nature of their injuries.

While the club has augmented its offense this winter by bringing in Joc Pederson and Jake Burger to replace Nathaniel Lowe in the lineup, better health from Jung and Carter figure to be necessary if the Rangers hope to look more like their 2023 offense, which was third in baseball with a 116 wRC+, than their below-average 2024 club in the upcoming season. Healthy seasons from Jung and Carter would also come with the benefit of pushing outfielder Leody Taveras and infielder Josh Smith into bench roles, giving them one of the deeper positional groups in the sport when fully healthy.

Josh Jung Undergoes Wrist Surgery

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The Rangers provided medical updates on some injured players today, with Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News among those to relay the info. Third baseman Josh Jung underwent a tendon release surgery on Tuesday that will keep him sidelined for the next three to four weeks, after which he will start regaining strength with the hope of having a normal offseason. Additionally, outfielder Evan Carter had an ablation procedure on his back while outfielder Adolis García has been diagnosed with a strained patellar tendon in his left knee and will rehab for the next eight weeks before beginning his offseason program.

Jung, 26, was limited by his right wrist in 2024, both in terms of the quality and quantity of his production. Last year, he hit 23 home runs in 122 games for the Rangers, slashing .266/.315/.467 for a 112 wRC+. Ideally, he would have built upon that this year but he was hit by a pitch in just his fourth contest of the season and suffered a fractured right wrist.

He underwent surgery in early April but the problems with his wrist were not solved at that point. The club initially anticipated a six-week recovery timeline but the surgery ended up being more complicated than expected, expanding his expected timeline to eight to ten weeks. By May, it was reported that even that longer timeline was optimistic. As he tried to work his way back to health, inflammation and discomfort continued to pop up.

He was reinstated from the IL at the end of July but eventually ended the season back on the IL, heading there in late September due to discomfort in that wrist. He finished the season with a .264/.298/.421 slash line and 102 wRC+ in just 46 games.

Jung was considering a platelet-rich plasma injection with the hope of that providing some healing, but he would have had to wait six weeks to see if that worked, which may have just been kicking the can down the road. “Rupture of the tendon was inevitable,” Jung tells Grant. By getting the procedure over with now, he’ll ideally have some time to get back to feeling 100% before spring training ramps up.

It was a somewhat similar story for Carter, 22, this year. He had a huge debut with the Rangers in 2023, hitting .306/.413/.645 in his first 23 major league games and then .300/.417/.500 in 17 postseason games. But he also had a mostly lost season, hitting .188/.272/.361 in just 45 games, with a stress reaction in his back the culprit in his case. Per Grant, this ablation procedure was to “burn” off some scar tissue that was hampering his recovery. He has already been cleared to begin a hitting progression.

As for García, he got into 154 games this year but with clearly diminished production. His .224/.284/.400 batting line and 92 wRC+ were both far worse than last year’s .245/.328/.508 line and 126 wRC+. He also put up a massive .323/.382/.726 line and 199 wRC+ in the postseason, helping the Rangers win the World Series and earning ALCS MVP honors along the way. Perhaps the knee injury provides an explanation for the big drop-off. The eight-week timeline should give him plenty of time to be healed before spring training ramps up.

Offensive struggles were a big reason why the Rangers disappointed on the heels of their World Series victory. Collectively, they hit .263/.337/.452 in the 2023 regular season. That led to a 116 wRC+ which trailed only Atlanta and Tampa. In 2024, they dropped all the way to a collective line of .238/.305/.380 and 95 wRC+, putting them in the bottom third of the league.

The club’s poor performance wasn’t limited to these guys, but it’s obviously less than ideal to have three projected regulars at less than full strength. Ideally, all can be healthy for spring and back to their best selves in 2025. Jung figures to be the everyday option at third while Carter and García should be in the outfield alongside Wyatt Langford and Leody Taveras. García is about to turn 32 and has two years of club control left, so he’s a theoretical trade candidate for this winter, but the Rangers would obviously be selling low given his rough season and injured knee.

AL West Notes: Astros, Pivetta, Jung, Mariners, Martinez

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The Astros had a “very high” amount of interest in Nick Pivetta prior to the trade deadline, MassLive.com’s Chris Cotillo reports.  No deal was worked out between Houston and Boston, naturally, as the Red Sox were still in contention and opted against moving Pivetta or any other impending free agents.  The Astros instead pivoted to landing Yusei Kikuchi from the Blue Jays in what was arguably the most impactful trade of deadline season, as Kikuchi’s dominance dominance since coming to Houston has been a key factor in the Astros’ run to the AL West crown.

Pivetta made his final start of the 2024 campaign yesterday, and the right-hander finishes his eighth MLB season with a 4.14 ERA over 145 2/3 innings, as well as very strong strikeout (28.9%) and walk (6.1) rates.  Pivetta’s success was limited by a propensity for allowing hard contact and a lot of home runs, but all in all, he has made a solid case for himself as he enters free agency in advance of his age-32 season.  On paper, the Astros’ mix of younger arms and veteran starters returning from injury should help the team make up for the possible departures of Kikuchi and Justin Verlander in free agency, yet the “you can never have enough pitching” cliche is a persuasive counter-argument.  Bolstering the group with a mid-tier option like Pivetta could be an attractive option to the Astros this winter.

Some other items from the AL West…

  • A CT scan on Josh Jung’s surgically-repaired right wrist revealed no structural damage, Rangers manager Bruce Bochy told reporters (including Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News).  Jung missed most of the season after undergoing the surgery in early April, and was still bothered by some discomfort in his wrist after returning to the field in late July.  The Rangers ended Jung’s season with an IL placement earlier this week, and Bochy said that the third baseman’s shutdown period will involve “complete rest for a couple of weeks and then we’ll test it and see where he’s at.”  Jung hit only .248/.278/.367 in 169 plate appearances following his surgery.
  • The Mariners’ offense has been one of the best in baseball since Edgar Martinez assumed hitting coach duties on August 23, yet it isn’t clear if Martinez will be back in the job next season.  The Seattle Times’ Adam Jude writes that the club has already started looking for a new hitting coach, though the M’s would seemingly love having Martinez return, if he is willing to take on the daily grind of a coaching role over a full season.  The possibility exists that the Mariners could both hire a new top hitting coach and still retain Martinez, as Jude suggests that Martinez could stay on as a coach for just home games, in order to cut down on the travel.

Rangers Select Matt Duffy, Promote Dustin Harris

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The Rangers made a handful of moves before tonight’s series opener in Oakland. Texas selected veteran infielder Matt Duffy onto the roster and recalled outfielder/infielder Dustin Harris for what’ll be his big league debut. The Rangers also activated reliever Josh Sborz from the 15-day injured list.

Texas placed third baseman Josh Jung on the 10-day IL, optioned lefty reliever Walter Pennington and put utilityman Ezequiel Duran on the paternity list. Tyler Mahle moved from the 15-day to the 60-day IL in a procedural move to open a 40-man roster spot for Duffy. Texas had already shut Mahle down on account of shoulder soreness.

The 33-year-old Duffy gets a brief opportunity to return to the majors. Duffy has been in Triple-A since signing a minor league deal in Spring Training. The veteran infielder hasn’t produced much offensively, turning in a .218/.296/.280 slash across 216 plate appearances in the Pacific Coast League. Texas was out of healthy infielders on the 40-man roster, though, so they’ll give Duffy a shot to play in the big leagues for a ninth season. He’ll back up Marcus Semien, Josh Smith and Jonathan Ornelas for the final six games of the year. Duffy will be a free agent at the start of the offseason and will be in line for another minor league contract somewhere.

Harris, 25, has a bit of third base experience himself. He has started 12 games there with Triple-A Round Rock this season. He’s primarily an outfielder, logging more than 900 frames between left and center field. The left-handed hitter carries a .272/.358/.391 slash with 10 longballs across 564 trips to the plate. That’s minimal power production for the hitter-friendly PCL, but Harris has stolen 35 bases and has strong plate discipline numbers over his minor league career.

Texas added Harris to their 40-man roster over the 2022-23 offseason. They’ve remained intrigued enough by his physical tools to keep him on the roster even while he was on optional assignment in the minors. Baseball America ranked Harris as the #11 prospect in the system on its midseason update. He could make his MLB debut against the organization that drafted him. Harris was an 11th-round pick by the A’s in 2019. Oakland traded him to the Rangers the following summer in a deadline deal for lefty Mike Minor.

Jung’s season comes to a close because of right wrist discomfort. The All-Star third baseman broke his wrist on a hit-by-pitch in the first week of the season. He underwent surgery that sidelined him until the end of July. Jung hasn’t played up to his 2023 level since returning and he’ll finish the year with a .264/.298/.421 slash in 46 games. Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News wrote this week that Jung will visit a specialist on Thursday to determine the source of his ongoing discomfort. He’ll hope for a mostly healthy offseason.

Rangers Make 11 Roster Moves

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5:33PM: Gray will miss roughly a month of action, Bochy told Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News (X link) and other reporters.

3:43PM: The Rangers announced a massive slate of roster moves this afternoon. Third baseman Josh Jung and left-hander Cody Bradford were each reinstated from the 60-day injured list while the club also recalled infielder Ezequiel Durán and righty Gerson Garabito.  To open roster spots for that quartet, right-hander Jon Gray was placed on the 15-day IL with a right groin strain, and Texas optioned three others to Triple-A — catcher Andrew Knizner, and infielders Justin Foscue and Jonathan Ornelas.  To open 40-man spots for Jung and Bradford, outfielder Evan Carter was transferred to the 60-day injured list and infielder Davis Wendzel was designated for assignment. Additionally, righty Austin Pruitt (who was on the 60-day IL) has been released.

Jung and Bradford are each set for their first MLB action since April, as Jung is returning from a complicated wrist surgery and Bradford was dealing with both a back strain and then a stress fracture in his rib.  Jung broke his wrist after being hit by a pitch in his fourth game of the season, while Bradford had an impressive 1.40 ERA in his first three starts (19 1/3 IP) before he was sidelined.

Emerging as the Rangers’ regular third baseman during his impressive rookie season, Jung helped the Rangers win last year’s World Series and was expected to continue developing in his sophomore year.  The good news for Texas is that Josh Smith’s strong work as the fill-in third baseman has helped the team make do in Jung’s absence, and with Jung now back, Smith can be bounced around the diamond to left field or DH so the Rangers can keep his bat in the lineup.

Despite Bradford’s great early numbers as a starter, the Rangers have already announced that he’ll return in a bullpen role.  Bradford was pressed into rotation duty at the start of the year due to the lengthy list of Texas pitchers on the IL, but with many of those arms now back, the Rangers find themselves with a pitching surplus on paper if everyone is healthy.  To this end, the club felt comfortable enough to subtract from this depth by trading Michael Lorenzen to the Royals.

However, the injury bug bit again yesterday when Gray injured his groin while warming up for his scheduled start against the Blue Jays.  Gray departed without throwing a pitch, and the right-hander will be out for at least the next 15 days.  Bradford has only worked as a multi-inning reliever during his rehab assignment and isn’t fully stretched out to start, but the Rangers have an off-day on Thursday and Tyler Mahle is on the verge of his own return from the IL, so Mahle seems the likeliest candidate to take Gray’s spot in the rotation in a week’s time.

This is Gray’s second groin-related IL stint this season, as he missed a couple of weeks in May and June with his previous injury.  When healthy, the righty has a 3.73 ERA and an impressive 5.8% walk rate over 94 innings, though he has allowed a lot of hard contact and his 19.7% strikeout rate is the lowest of his career over a full season.

Carter hasn’t played May 26 due to a lumbar sprain in his back, so he could technically return at any time since he has already missed over 60 days.  However, manager Bruce Bochy told MLB.com and other media that Carter is set to visit a back specialist to explore some recurring soreness, and the Rangers have shut the outfielder down from the baseball activities Carter was taking part in prior to this recent development.

More will be known once Carter sees the specialist, but it’s obviously a concern that that the 21-year-old doesn’t appear to be any closer to a return.  Carter’s huge numbers after his Major League debut late last season and through the postseason provided the Rangers with a huge spark on their route to the championship, but with his bad back hampering him this year, Carter has hit only .188/.272/.361 in his first 162 PA of the 2024 campaign.

Pruitt signed a minors deal with Texas during the offseason, and that contract was selected to the active roster in April.  Pruitt appeared in only four games before a right meniscus injury sent him to the 15-day IL and then the 60-day IL.  He has spent the last month rehabbing in the minors and was at the end of the 30-day window for minor league rehab assignments, so the Rangers opted to release the righty rather than bring him back to the 26-man roster.  A veteran of seven MLB seasons, Pruitt will hit the open market again, though it might not be a surprise to see him re-sign with Texas pretty quickly on a fresh minor league deal.

Wendzel was selected 41st overall by the Rangers in the 2019 draft, and he made his big league debut this season the form of 27 games and 49 plate appearances.  He saw some work at third base during Jung’s IL stint, but Wendzel mostly came off the bench, and he hit just .128/.163/.234 in his first look at MLB pitching.

The 27-year-old has hit well at Triple-A over the last two seasons, including a 30-homer campaign for Round Rock in 2023.  Wendzel has mostly played third base and shortstop during his minor league career with a few other looks at the other two infield spots and in left field, so between this defensive versatility and his Triple-A numbers, he might be a candidate to be claimed by a team in need of infield depth.

AL West Notes: Tucker, Verlander, Bloss, Woo, Jung

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Astros manager Joe Espada offered a disappointing, if not entirely surprising, injury update regarding two of his biggest stars. Speaking to reporters (including Matt Kawahara of the Houston Chronicle) ahead of today’s contest in Toronto, the skipper acknowledged that neither Kyle Tucker nor Justin Verlander is likely to return from the IL before the All-Star break.

Tucker has not played since June 3 as he nurses a right shin contusion he suffered when he fouled a ball off his leg. In mid-June, Espada suggested that Tucker would likely require a minor league rehab assignment. With the All-Star break fast approaching and the outfielder yet to begin any on-field work (per Kawahara), it’s hard to imagine he makes it back before the break. The Astros would surely like to have Tucker back as soon as possible, but they have played surprisingly well in their best hitter’s absence. Making sure that he’s healthy for the stretch run is more important than rushing him back in July.

Meanwhile, Verlander has not pitched since June 9; he is dealing with neck discomfort. He is progressing well, but Espada says the future Hall of Famer has not yet gotten back to throwing off a mound. Once again, the Astros could certainly use the veteran in their injury-plagued rotation ASAP, but rushing him back would be a shortsighted move with so much season left to play.

Another point of interest concerning Verlander: As Kawahara notes, it is now extremely unlikely that his conditional $35MM player option for 2025 will be triggered. Even if the 41-year-old were to return immediately after the All-Star break and pitch once every five games for the rest of the season, he would need to average 6 1/3 innings per start to reach the necessary 140 innings pitched.

Finally, Espada also mentioned that rookie Jake Bloss will make a rehab start this weekend. Barring any setbacks, the young righty could make his next start in Houston. Bloss, 23, is generally considered one of the Astros’ better pitching prospects. He landed on the IL with shoulder discomfort on June 21, the same day that he made his MLB debut.

More injury updates from around the AL West:

  • Rangers manager Bruce Bochy offered reporters an update on Josh Jung, who has been on the IL almost all season. The All-Star third baseman fractured his wrist on a hit-by-pitch on April 1. Jung has recently been nursing a flare-up of discomfort in his injured wrist and has not swung a bat since his last rehab game on June 20 (per Kennedi Landry of MLB.com). However, he has no further structural damage. The Rangers are going to shut him down completely for another week, after which they hope he’ll be able to restart his rehab assignment (per Jeff Wilson of Rangers Today). Needless to say, this means Jung will not be ready to return to Arlington before the All-Star break.
  • In more positive news, the Mariners aren’t ready to rule out the possibility that Bryan Woo could return to their rotation ahead of the Midsummer Classic. He threw a successful bullpen session on Wednesday (per Daniel Kramer of MLB.com) and will make a rehab start this weekend. If all goes well in that outing, there’s a chance he could make his next start for Seattle. Woo, 24, has pitched exceptionally well in his sophomore season, with a 1.77 ERA in eight starts. Not all of his underlying numbers are quite as eye-catching (4.01 SIERA, 3.96 xFIP), but there’s no doubt the Mariners would like to have the young hurler back as soon as possible to see more of what he’s capable of.

Corey Seager Exits Game Following Hit By Pitch

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Rangers star Corey Seager exited tonight’s game against the Orioles after being struck in the wrist area in the fifth inning by Baltimore lefty Cade Povich, as noted by several reporters (including MLB.com’s Kennedi Landry) on X. The Rangers subsequently announced that initial x-rays on Seager’s wrist were negative, though he’ll be evaluated further tomorrow to determine the severity of the issue.

An absence of any length for the 30-year-old superstar would be a brutal turn of events for the Rangers as they try to fight their way back into the AL playoff picture. The club currently sits at 37-45 entering play this evening, nine games back of the Mariners in the AL West and 7.5 games back of the Royals for the final AL Wild Card spot. With Texas currently buried behind the Red Sox, Astros, Rays, and Blue Jays in the race to catch the Royals for that final playoff spot, the Rangers were already facing an uphill climb as they seek an opportunity to defend their 2023 World Series championship this fall.

Now, it seems possible they’ll have to do so without Seager, at least for the time being. On the heels of a campaign where he slashed an incredible .327/.390/.623 en route to a second-place finish behind Shohei Ohtani in AL MVP voting as well as the second World Series MVP honors of his career, the 10-year MLB veteran got off to an uncharacteristically slow start in April but quickly began to heat up when the calendar flipped to May.

Over the past two months, Seager has slashed an excellent .273/.356/.521 (139 wRC+) to raise his season-long figure to 116, although digging a little deeper into his numbers would suggest that even that number has some misfortune baked into it. Seager’s .277 BABIP in 71 games this year would be the second-lowest figure of his career and just the second time he’s posted a figure below .300. Meanwhile, his .335 wOBA is a far cry from his expected .379 figure, the latter of which ranks 14th among qualified hitters this year, sandwiched between Bryce Harper and Mookie Betts.

Even setting aside Seager’s underlying performance and focusing purely on his production to this point, the shortstop’s 116 wRC+ is one of only two above-average offensive performances the Rangers have gotten from qualified hitters this season, trailing only the fantastic breakout performance of infielder Josh Smith. With key bats such as Marcus Semien and Adolis Garcia not yet meeting expectations this season, top prospects Evan Carter and Wyatt Langford struggling through injuries and ineffectiveness in their rookie campaigns, and star third baseman Josh Jung sidelined by a wrist injury of his own since early April, the Rangers lineup has in some ways leaned even more heavily on Seager this season than it did during his MVP-caliber 2023 season.

In the event that Seager misses time, Smith appears to be the most likely candidate to handle shortstop in his absence, sliding over to the position from third base. Jung appeared to be nearing a return to action not long ago, although as noted by Evan Grant of The Dallas Morning News the youngster has been delayed in returning to taking batting practice by inflammation in his ailing wrist. According to Grant, Manager Bruce Bochy told reporters prior to tonight’s game that Jung will not swing this weekend and is headed to visit with a specialist on Monday to be re-evaluated. Even if that visit with a specialist ends up going well and Jung is cleared to resume swinging, Grant suggests that a conservative approach to his rehab could see him remain out until play resumes after the All Star break.

Should third base be left open by Smith taking over for Seager at shortstop, it appears likely that the Rangers would call up another infielder such as Ezequiel Duran or Justin Foscue to pair with utility infielder Davis Wendzel at the hot corner. Duran is the most established big leaguer of the three, having played his way into something of an everyday role with the Rangers last year in a bat-first utility role. The 25-year-old’s offense evaporated this year, however, as he hit a paltry .256/.294/.324 in 58 games before being demoted to the minors. Foscue, meanwhile, is a former top-100 prospect with a career .261/.396/.456 slash line at the Triple-A level who has just two big league plate appearances under his belt. Either player appears more likely to take the lion’s share of available at-bats rather than Wendzel, a 27-year-old rookie who has struggled badly at the plate with a wRC+ of just 15 in 25 games with the Rangers this year.

Rangers Notes: Scherzer, Gray, Jung

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TODAY: Scherzer began his rehab assignment today, tossing 53 pitches over four scoreless innings for Triple-A Round Rock.  As noted by Shawn McFarland of the Dallas Morning News, Scherzer’s sinker was averaging 93mph, and he threw the pitch 22 times among his 53 overall offerings while allowing only one hit and one walk in the five-strikeout outing.  The Rangers plan to build Scherzer up to a 75-pitch count before evaluating whether or not he might be ready to return to the majors.

JUNE 8: The Rangers activated right-hander Jon Gray from the 10-day injured list this afternoon, just over two weeks after he was initially shelved due to a groin strain. That quick turnaround has left Gray not fully stretched out to start, and Evan Grant of The Dallas Morning News wrote this afternoon that the right-hander would be eased back into his role with the club in a relief role before later rejoining the starting mix. According to Grant, the decision to first use Gray in relief before adding him back to the rotation mix his next time up allowed the Rangers to skip a minor league rehab stint for the 32-year-old hurler.

That plan came to pass this evening, as Gray pitched 2 1/3 scoreless frames in relief of Andrew Heaney during this evening’s loss to the Giants. Regardless of the role he’s pitching in, Gray’s return figures to provide a huge boost to the Rangers pitching staff. After all, the righty boasted a 2.21 ERA and 2.52 FIP in 57 frames at the time of his placement on the IL with a solid 23.7% strikeout rate and a 44.4% groundball rate that represents his best work since joining the Rangers prior to the 2021 season. With starters Jacob deGrom, Max Scherzer, Cody Bradford, and Tyler Mahle all currently in the midst of lengthy absences, Gray’s speedy return from the shelf figures to be key for the Rangers as they look to get themselves back into the hunt for the postseason. The club has scuffled in recent weeks and currently sports a 30-34 record that puts them five games back of the Mariners for the AL West crown and three games out of the final AL Wild Card spot.

Fortunately, Gray isn’t the only key player who could return from injury in the near future. Grant also relays that third baseman Josh Jung, who has been shelved for the majority of the season due to a broken wrist, has begun taken live batting practice and could be slated for a rehab assignment as soon as this coming Tuesday. Grant adds that Rangers brass are expected to set a schedule for Jung tomorrow that could firm up those plans.

Jung made it into just four games with the Rangers before he was sidelined this year, but he was hitting a scorching .412/.474/.941 in that microscopic sample size before the injury put him out of action. Since the start of Jung’s 2023 campaign, he’s been a well above average offensive contributor for Texas at third base with a .271/.320/.483 slash line, 26 doubles, and 25 home runs in 534 trips to the plate across just 126 games. Josh Smith has performed well at the hot corner in Jung’s absence, although the 26-year-old’s return from the injured list would still improve the club’s offense by allowing the team to push Ezequiel Duran and his 92 wRC+ into a bench role.

Turning back to the pitching staff, veteran ace Max Scherzer also made progress in his rehab earlier this week, as MLB.com’s Injury Tracker notes that he threw 40-50 pitches across two innings of live batting practice earlier this week, with Scherzer himself telling reporters that he hopes to start a minor league rehab assignment soon. It’s been a rocky road to recovery for Scherzer this season as he entered the 2024 campaign projected to return from offseason back surgery around the All Star break before seemingly progressing ahead of schedule. That left him and the Rangers eyeing sometime in May for his return, although a nerve issue in Scherzer’s thumb ultimately required a cortisone shot and caused the club to shut the veteran righty down.

Now that Scherzer is throwing to hitters once again, he appears to be on a similar track to the one he was projected for at the time of his surgery, with a return later this month or in early July now a seemingly realistic target so long as he avoids additional setbacks. After being swapped from the Mets to the Rangers in exchange for Luisangel Acuna last summer, the future Hall of Famer pitched to a 3.20 ERA and 3.41 FIP in eight starts for the club down the stretch with an excellent 29.9% strikeout rate but dealt with injuries that limited both his availability and his effectiveness during the club’s postseason run that culminated in the first World Series championship in franchise history. Looking ahead, his return to action should further bolster the pitching staff in Texas while allowing the Rangers to shift the likes of Heaney and Jose Urena into relief after early season rotation injuries forced them into starting roles.

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