DENVER - The Rangers, you might say, are in their Taylor Swift Era. Just this week, they dropped their newest release: The Tortured Pitchers Department.
As they careened into Coors Field, which is definitely not renowned for its rejuvenative effect on pitchers, they did so with yet another pitcher shelved. This time it’s reliever Josh Sborz, who landed on the injured list Thursday for the second time this season with a strained rotator cuff. He was the fourth pitcher to land on the IL in two weeks. Fortnight, indeed.
The Rangers now have nearly the equivalent of a full pitching staff on the IL. Sborz makes it nine. They have 13 pitchers on the active roster. Of more significance: With the recall of Grant Anderson to replace Sborz, they have just two healthy pitchers left on the 40-man roster if they run into any further issues. One of them is Jack Leiter, who almost certainly will be recalled on Tuesday to start when they run short of starting options again. The other is reliever Antoine Kelly, fresh off a stint on the IL, and without a lick of major league experience.
It was enough of a concern that GM Chris Young made a previously unscheduled trip to Colorado to “huddle” with staff about handling the situation.
“We’re not that far from being healthy, but right now we’re stretched pretty thin,” he said.
Friday’s 4-2 loss to a team nearly 20 games below .500 was a perfect example of the delicate nature of the pitching staff at the moment. Jon Gray, in his return to Colorado, which often tortured him, continued his run of excellence by allowing a run in six innings. Didn’t have his best stuff, but did have supreme confidence in it, which he often lacked during seven seasons with the Rockies.
But when he was done and the Rangers had failed to get to lefty Austin Gombert, they were left with few leverage options. The aged back-end wonders, David Roberston and Kirby Yates, each needed an extra day of rest, which thrust José Leclerc into the closer’s role and left him unavailable to pitch the eighth. Instead, the Rangers tried to divide it between Anderson and Yerry Rodriguez. Nearly narrowly escaped, but Rodriguez left a fat fastball up to Charlie Blackmon with two outs in the inning, which the veteran turned into a tie-breaking, two-run double.
“He’s got great stuff,” manager Bruce Bochy said. “But sometimes it takes him a batter or two to get to his best stuff.”
And when you are as thin as the Rangers are right now, that luxury doesn’t exist.
“There’s no way around it,” Bochy said before the game. “We’re thin. We have to work around it. We don’t have a choice. Obviously we have to be concerned about taking care of our guys right now. We’ve got two starters that are out and guys have to step up.”
The miracle in all of this is that as he was saying it, the Rangers were sitting in first place in the AL West. As of Friday, only the Los Angeles Angels, full of doom, despair and agony, had more players on the IL than the Rangers. The Angels began Friday with 14; the Rangers with 13.
But their pitching situation is more perilous than it has been all year, maybe more than it will be at any point the rest of the way, too. They will almost certainly ask Jose Ureña to start again Sunday in the road trip finale, which will take a key multi-inning reliever out of the mix. If they don’t go to Leiter, who has allowed 11 runs in 7.2 innings of two starts, for Tuesday’s outing, it will be Owen White, who began Friday with a symbol rather than a number for an ERA. He hadn’t retired any of the three batters he faced in his 2024 debut.
And if it gets beyond that? Oh, dear. You recall the Rangers signed veteran Johnny Cueto a little over two weeks ago? Great name. Great resumé. Still in Arizona building up, which is to say, he’s not an option. Jokingly, someone asked Bochy on Friday if he’s been in touch with Madison Bumgarner. At this point: Hey, why not?
It’s not limited to the rotation. The Rangers even re-signed veteran Chasen Shreve, who took his release from Triple-A Round Rock last month, and right-hander Peter Solomon to minor league deals on Friday. They signed veteran Kyle Barraclough to a minor league deal Wednesday. They continue to monitor the opt-outs for veteran pitchers currently on minor league deals with other clubs.
The other choices for fill-in or long-relief roles: Adrian Sampson, Shaun Anderson and Gerson Garabito. The first two haven’t pitched in the majors since 2022. Garabito has made eight starts above Double-A in his professional career. The last two seasons were spent in Venezuela and Mexico, respectively.
It’s not to say that they couldn’t step up and fill a role, especially since the Rangers think it would be short-term since they believe they are getting closer to healthy. But, based on your viewpoint, it would be either a challenge or an opportunity.
Ideally, the Rangers wouldn’t find out. They’d like for Leiter or White or, better yet, both of them, to seize the opportunity in the short-term.
It might not have to be for a terribly long stretch. There were dual encouraging developments for the Rangers on Friday. Bochy said Cody Bradford, dealing with a stress fracture in his 12th rib, has felt significantly better and could start throwing off a mound shortly after the team returns to Arlington. Also, Max Scherzer made an appearance on the field again and played catch for the first time this week, perhaps with a better diagnosis on the thumb issue that has stalled his rehab.
Scherzer revealed that he returned to Dallas on Wednesday, underwent further exam that indicated the issue may be more nerve-related than skeletal. He received a cortisone injection and said he experienced significant improvement. He said doctors switched course when he passed all the strength tests that would have been more indicative of a ligament issue.
“I think we’ve got a better bead on what’s going on,” he said. “I feel like we’re just getting more clarity on what we need to think about moving forward.”
All they know at the moment is this: The pitching staff is at an inflection point. And they just don’t want to end up with a Blank Space.
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