WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The Texas Rangers’ offense returned to full strength Sunday after multiple early-season injuries left them short-handed for the bulk of the first month of play. They were able to arrange a new-look lineup because of that Tuesday afternoon and immediately reaped rewards that evening.
It was a swell 72 hours.
The Rangers placed shortstop Corey Seager was on the 10-day injured list Wednesday with a Grade 1 right hamstring strain that he picked up in Tuesday’s series-opening win against the Athletics at Sutter Health Park. Seager, 30, pulled up and grabbed his hamstring when he ran out a single in the fifth inning of Tuesday’s win and exited before the start of the sixth.
Texas promoted veteran shortstop Nick Ahmed to the major leagues in Seager’s place and designated left-handed pitcher Walter Pennington to make room for the two-time Gold Glove award winner on the 40-man roster. Ahmed, 35, spent spring training with the Rangers, resigned with the club on April 9 and has spent the last two weeks at the club’s Arizona facility. He started at shortstop and hit ninth Wednesday against the Athletics.
Seager missed 31 games with a left hamstring strain during the 2023 season and nearly a month of action with a left hamstring strain with the Los Angeles Dodgers during the 2019 season. The Rangers believe this trip to the injured list will be his shortest hamstring-related injured list trip yet. General manager Ross Fenstermaker said Wednesday that his time on the injured list this season could be “pretty close to the 10 day mark.” Manager Bruce Bochy classified that diagnosis “as good of news as we could hope for.”
“The less time that he spends on the IL will be better for this team,” Fenstermaker said. “I think we’re pretty optimistic and pleased with what we have received so far on the news front.”
No kidding. Wednesday’s 5-2 loss to the Athletics — in which Wyatt Langford’s sixth home run of the season totaled half of the Rangers’ offense vs. left-hander J.P. Sears — was a stark reminder of what life looks like without Seager.
His injury and absence (for any length of time) is a significant blow to a Rangers offense that’s scuffled out the gate. The Rangers, who’re 44-40 without Seager since the start of the 2023 season, entered Wednesday bottom-third leaguewide in batting average, runs scored, walk rate and on base plus slugging percentage. Their 76 wRC+ — an all-encompassing metric that evaluates a player or team’s overall offensive contribution — was the sixth-worst in baseball.
Seager, a five-time All-Star, had been one of just a handful of Texas hitters that’d played at or above their expected level of performance. He posted an .813 OPS in his first 21 games, slashed .400/.464/.600 in his last seven and shifted one spot down in the lineup into the three-hole Tuesday night with the hope that Smith (who moved into leadoff) and Wyatt Langford (who hit second) could get on base in front of him.
The shift resulted in a season high amount of runs (eight) and home runs (four) while Smith and Langford combined to reach base six times to pace possibly the Rangers’ single best offensive performance this season. Bochy, postgame, bemoaned Seager’s injury because he was “hoping to keep this lineup like this for a while.”
The Rangers will now need to wait to see the full benefits of the renovated batting order. Bochy kept the essence of the new-look lineup intact Wednesday with Kevin Pillar at leadoff in place of Smith vs. left-handed pitcher JP Sears and third baseman Josh Jung in place of Seager.
Bochy said that Smith, the Rangers’ Silver Slugger-winning super utility man, will be the primary shortstop with Seager sidelined. Ahmed will serve as a utility infielder and, according to Fenstermaker, was picked over other infield options on the 40-man roster because of his “veteran experience.”
Smith leads the Rangers with a 1.027 OPS but hasn’t actually been able to spend much time in a “utility” role; he filled in for both Jung and Langford during their stints on the injured list this season and will now do the same for Seager.
“It’s definitely weird,” Smith said. “You never want to see guys go down, but I think that, kind of the role that I have, when someone does go down, I kind of fill in for them. But, yeah, you don’t want to see guys like Corey go down.”
The Rangers never do.
They’ll take solace in the fact that this one could be his shortest absence yet.
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