Can Rangers hold AL West lead as stars heal? Their trade deadline fate depends on it
· Yahoo Sports
ATLANTA — All around Skip Schumaker on Friday afternoon, prior to a brief Georgia downpour, there were positive indicators on healthcare. Corey Seager jogged. Jacob deGrom played catch. Jack Leiter threw nearly the equivalent of a full outing off flat ground.
Visit sport-newz.biz for more information.
The Rangers are healing.
Here’s the thing though: Healing still takes time. And a four-day All-Star break helped, but it didn’t restore the Rangers to full health. Which is not great news ahead of a critical 16-game stretch leading up to the trade deadline in which the club needs to make a statement while playing three division leaders and the two teams trailing them in the AL West race.
If anything, on Friday, the list was actually a little longer. Nathan Eovaldi is not yet scheduled for a second-half start, partly because the Rangers wanted to back off ever so slightly on his workload and because he returned to the club a bit under the weather. He could start Sunday’s series finale, but that’s not certain. What is certain is deGrom won’t pitch in this series.
“There’s a lot of things that are positive,” Schumaker said. “It’s moving in the right direction. I’m optimistic when I’m seeing our best players out on the field doing baseball activity. That is very encouraging. Having these guys back and finding out you know what this team really looks like healthy is exciting to think about.”
But.
There is always a but with this Rangers team.
“But we’ve also been playing really good baseball with guys that we probably weren’t assuming are going to be everyday players and they’re performing.”
They are. It’s why the Rangers have the lead in the AL West as baseball returns from its break. The lead may be tenuous, but it’s still a lead.
And now for the details. Like a doctor with a good bedside manner, we’ll start with what is truly encouraging.
- Jakob Junis: The Rangers’ top right-handed leverage relief arm pitched in simulated game environments in Arizona over the break against minor leaguers and was scheduled to fly to Atlanta for the weekend. It’s possible he could be active as early as Saturday after dealing with a hip impingement for the last two-plus weeks.
In his absence, Rangers right-handed relievers compiled a 6.33 ERA and allowed opponents a .327 weighted on-base average entering Friday. Both numbers ranked in the bottom tier among MLB bullpens in that stretch.
“We need Junis back,” Schumaker said. “There’s no getting around that. I mean, not having Junis for a minute, it’s been tough.”
- deGrom: Providing he has no leg soreness after his catch session on Friday, deGrom will throw a bullpen on Saturday. While that eliminates him as an option for the Braves series, he could be back on the mound as early as Monday against the Chicago White Sox, which would put him on track to start in the four-game series against Seattle that begins Friday at Globe Life Field.
- Leiter: He has made significantly quicker progress than expected after having a small bone removed from his left ankle. He’s still not ready to get on a mound and add the extra stress associated with pushing off on a downhill plane, but he’s getting ever closer.
And now for the other…
- Seager: While he did about 10 straight line jogs and played a bit of catch in a batting cage, it was his first time on the field since he re-injured his lower back. The plan is to slowly build up more baseball activity over the next seven days and then re-evaluate.
“After these next seven days, we’ll see what it looks like, but, again, this is a bunch of unknowns,” Schumaker said. “This is what the doctors we talked to recommended, to take seven days off, then build up these seven days and see how he feels.
“I’m not going to predict what happens after seven days. I have no idea what tomorrow is going to look like. That’s just because we’ve gone backwards a ton, right? There had been a couple good days and then a setback. So hopefully tomorrow there’s no setback, and he’s ready to take some potential ground ball work on the field.”
Bottom line: As the Rangers enter a stretch which will determine if they are buyers or sellers, if they are going to make their case to buy, it’s going to come without Seager in the lineup.
And it’s hard to find that encouraging.