The Rangers really can’t catch a break. Just after I wrote about Nathan Eovaldi’s sneaky great season, the 35-year-old righty briefly took over the official AL ERA lead. Before he could make another start, however, the Rangers announced that Eovaldi would likely miss the remainder of the season due to a rotator cuff strain. As if losing their most effective starting pitcher wasn’t enough, the Rangers also announced on Thursday that Corey Seager, their top hitter, had undergone an appendectomy, putting the rest of his season in doubt.
With his seven-inning, nine-strikeout, one-run effort against the Guardians last Friday, Eovaldi lowered his ERA to 1.73 in 130 innings, exactly enough to qualify based on the Rangers’ 130 games to that point. With that, he snuck ahead of Tarik Skubal (2.32), Hunter Brown (2.36) and Garrett Crochet (2.46) on the AL leaderboard, completing a game of catch-up caused primarily by his missing nearly all of June due to posterior elbow inflammation. Unfortunately, post-start soreness led Eovaldi to shut down his regularly scheduled bullpen session and get an MRI, which revealed a rotator cuff strain.
The 31-year-old Seager has hit .271/.373/.487 for a team-high 136 wRC+; his 21 homers and 3.9 WAR are also tops on the Rangers. He already made two trips to the injured list in April and May for a recurrent right hamstring strain and so has played just 102 games, that after being limited to 123 last year by a sports hernia and 119 in 2023 due to a left hamstring strain and a right thumb sprain. He’s been replaced on the roster by infielder Dylan Moore, who was recently released by the Mariners, but the likely replacement for him in the lineup is superutilityman Josh Smith, who has hit .256/.333/.378 (101 wRC+) while playing every position besides pitcher and catcher.
At 68-67, the Rangers are still on the outskirts of the AL Wild Card race, and they’re hardly alone among contenders in suffering significant blows lately. Some of the more impactful injuries have slipped through the cracks in our coverage at FanGraphs, while others merit mention so long as we’re on the topic. After covering such injuries — and some timely rehabs — among the NL contenders on Thursday, I’ll go through those of the AL contenders today, this time working West to East by division.
AL West
The Rangers’ litany isn’t confined just to Eovaldi and Seager. On August 21, the day before Eovaldi’s last start, they lost both Marcus Semien and Evan Carter to what may be season-ending injuries. Colleague Dan Szymborski covered that of Semien, who fractured a metatarsal and suffered a Lisfranc sprain when he fouled a ball off the top of his left foot. The timeline of his return from his first IL stint since 2017 (!) is four to six weeks, and the Rangers may not have anything to play for once he’s ready. The 34-year-old second baseman was hitting .230/.305/.364 (88 wRC+) after digging himself out of a deep early-season hole. Since his injury, manager Bruce Bochy has used Smith, Ezequiel Duran, and Cody Freeman at second. Duran has additionally been serving as the short half of a first base platoon (with Rowdy Tellez), as Jake Burger (who has hit a disappointing .242/.275/.416, 90 wRC+) has been out due to a left wrist sprain.
Carter was hit on the right wrist by a pitch in the second inning of that same game; he stayed in until the eighth, but post-game X-rays revealed the fracture. This is the 23-year-old outfielder’s third IL stint this season, following a right quad strain in May and then back spasms in early August. Between those outages and his starting the season at Triple-A Round Rock after missing the last four months of 2024 due to a lumbar sprain, he’s played in just 63 games for the Rangers, hitting .247/.336/.392 (106 wRC+). Since his injury, Wyatt Langford and Michael Helman have shared center field duties. As for who’s replacing Eovaldi, the Rangers turned to 29-year-old lefty Jacob Latz, their long man, to start on Wednesday; he turned in 4 1/3 innings of two-run work in a 20-3 rout of the Angels. Latz, who’s made four starts and 23 relief appearances, has a 3.13 ERA and 3.80 FIP in 63.1 innings with the Rangers.
As for the division-leading Astros (74-60), who lost Josh Hader for the remainder of the regular season due to a shoulder capsule strain earlier this month, their bullpen took another hit when Bennett Sousa sustained a low-grade elbow flexor/pronator strain last week. The 30-year-old southpaw, who’s pitched to a 2.84 ERA and 2.71 FIP in 50.2 innings so far, won’t throw again for at least a couple of weeks and will be reevaluated in early September. The team did just sign 37-year-old Craig Kimbrel to provide some depth in the bullpen, but he was tagged for two runs in his first inning of work on Sunday. What’s more, he hit catcher Yainer Diaz with a pitch on his left wrist; he hasn’t played since, and on Tuesday Victor Caratini sustained a concussion when he took a foul ball off his mask. Caratini, who’s hit .262/.317/.416 (103 wRC+) while sharing the catching duties and additionally DHing and playing first base, has been placed on the seven-day concussion list. César Salazar, a 29-year-old former prospect, has been called up from Triple-A Sugar Land to fill Caratini’s spot.
If there’s good news for the Astros, it’s that Yordan Alvarez returned to the lineup on Tuesday after missing 101 games due to a fractured metacarpal in his right hand. Alvarez hit just .212/.326/.365 (90 wRC+) in 32 games before being sidelined, but if he’s healthy, he’s one of the best hitters on the planet, and he’ll shore up the designated hitter slot. With and without him, Astros DHs — mainly Caratini, Diaz, and Jose Altuve along with Alvarez — have combined for a 90 wRC+, the majors’ fifth lowest. The lineup could get an additional boost soon as center fielder Jake Meyers, who hit .308/.369/.405 (119 wRC+) until being sidelined by a right calf strain just before the All-Star break, began a rehab assignment at Sugar Land on Wednesday.
The Mariners, who at 72-62 trail the Astros by two games, are comparatively healthy. They did lose starter Logan Evans to a bout of elbow inflammation on August 15, a loss that was countered by the return of Bryce Miller after his own 2 1/2-month absence due to elbow inflammation. Evans, a 24-year-old rookie righty, had put up a 4.37 ERA and 5.10 FIP in 78.1 innings, which isn’t pretty but is better than the 5.98 ERA and 5.22 FIP Miller has provided in 58.2 innings. In two starts since returning, Miller’s been tagged for five homers and eight runs in 10 innings.
Last Saturday, the Mariners activated Victor Robles, who fractured the humeral head of his left shoulder making a spectacular catch on April 6. He’s added some needed depth to the outfield, but he could miss as many as 10 games depending upon the outcome of his pending appeal of a suspension for throwing his bat at an opposing pitcher while on a rehab assignment on August 20.
AL Central
The Tigers (78-57) have the majors’ largest division lead at 8 1/2 games, and they’ve done it despite a slew of injuries in their outfield. Center fielder Parker Meadows has been limited to 38 games and a .200/.270/.296 (59 wRC+) line, first due to a nerve issue in his right (throwing) arm that prevented him from making his season debut until June 2, and then a right quad strain he suffered on July 27. He just began a rehab assignment on Wednesday, and should join the Tigers when rosters expand on September 1. The team is hoping that Matt Vierling, who landed on the IL due to a mild left oblique strain — his third stint this season — on August 1, won’t be too far behind. Vierling has been limited to 31 games and a .239/.310/.307 (76 wRC+) line by right shoulder woes. He suffered a strain in spring training and then played just four major league games upon returning in late May before being sidelined by further inflammation. Javier Báez and Wenceel Pérez have been sharing time in center field in the absence of Meadows and Vierling.
Turning to the Royals (69-65), as deadline acquisitions go, Bailey Falter — who was acquired from the Pirates on July 31 — has been something of a dud. He’s carrying an 11.25 ERA in 12 post-trade innings, and a 4.45 mark in 125.1 innings overall. He lasted only four innings in both of his starts with the Royals, and gave up runs in a pair of subsequent relief appearances. In the last of those, last Friday against the Tigers, he was hit on the left biceps by a comebacker; though he stayed in the game, the contusion forced him to the injured list. With fellow deadline acquisition Ryan Bergert doing a good job filling the rotation spot Falter briefly occupied, the 28-year-old lefty is bound for a relief role once he returns.
The rehabbing pitcher who could have a bigger impact on the Royals’ fate — or at least has the higher upside — is Cole Ragans, who’s been out since mid-June due to a strained rotator cuff. In 48.2 innings, he posted a 5.18 ERA but a 2.44 FIP, that after finishing second in the AL last year in FIP (2.99), strikeouts (223), strikeout rate (29.3%), and WAR (4.8), not to mention eighth in ERA (3.14). He’s been throwing bullpen sessions lately and could face live hitters soon. He’ll need at least a couple weeks to build up his pitch count, but if the Royals have anything to play for in the second half of September, he may be of help.
AL East
With a 3 1/2-game lead over the Red Sox (75-60) and a four-game lead over the Yankees (74-60), the Blue Jays (78-56) are in a commanding position heading into the season’s final month. They’ve gotten this far largely without Anthony Santander, their biggest free agent addition of the past winter. The 30-year-old slugger hit just .179/.273/.304 (62 wRC+) with six homers in 50 games before a left shoulder subluxation and subsequent bout of inflammation knocked him out of action in late May. He finally began swinging from both sides of the plate in mid-August, and as of earlier this week had progressed to hitting off high-velocity pitching machines and taking fly balls in the outfield. He’s fighting the clock as far as a rehab assignment, though Triple-A Buffalo’s season ends on September 21. The Blue Jays have gotten very good production out of both outfield corners (111 wRC+ in each) and DH (117 wRC+) largely without him, but having him as an extra option couldn’t hurt.
The Red Sox lead the AL Wild Card race, but Roman Anthony aside, it’s been a rough year for their top-tier prospects. Kristian Campbell, their no. 2 prospect, struggled on both sides of the ball after winning the second base job during spring training and has been working on shoring up his game at Triple-A Worcester since being optioned on June 20. Marcelo Mayer, their no. 3 prospect, was called up in late May and scuffled to a .228/.272/.402 (79 wRC+) line while mainly covering third during Alex Bregman’s absence. He landed on the IL on July 25 due to a right wrist sprain, and after making little progress in his rehab, underwent arthroscopic surgery on August 21 — his third straight season with a season-ending injury. Richard Fitts, their no. 5 prospect, made 10 big league starts between March 30 and July 28, missing six weeks due to a right pectoral strain and getting optioned to Worcester a few times within that span. Called up again on August 21, he made just one appearance — four innings of bulk work behind an opener — before being diagnosed with neuritis in his right arm and landing on the IL on Tuesday. There’s no timetable yet for his return, and the Red Sox are now scrambling for a starter in a rotation that’s lost Tanner Houck to Tommy John surgery and Hunter Dobbins to a torn ACL, as well as sending Walker Buehler to the bullpen.
The Yankees, who trail the Red Sox by just half a game despite losing eight of 10 to their top rivals, have certainly taken major hits in the injury department by losing starters Gerrit Cole and Clarke Schmidt and reliever Jake Cousins to Tommy John surgery, but in terms of more recent injuries, the most major one is losing reliever Jonathan Loáisiga for the season. The oft-injured 30-year-old righty, who was limited to 17 appearances in 2023 due to elbow inflammation and three in ’24 due to a flexor strain that required surgery, didn’t make his season debut until May 16. He made 30 appearances totaling 29.2 innings, with a 4.25 ERA and 5.82 FIP, before landing on the IL on August 3 due to mid-back tightness, then was pulled off his rehab assignment due to what was diagnosed as another flexor strain. On Friday, manager Aaron Boone said that Loáisiga will miss the remainder of the season, a blow to a bullpen that has the fourth-highest ERA (4.28) and sixth-highest FIP (4.13) in the league, and that’s been even worse in August (4.67 ERA and 4.19 FIP) despite the deadline additions of David Bednar, Jake Bird, and Camilo Doval. The team is slated to get 33-year-old lefty Ryan Yarbrough back soon; out since late June due to an oblique strain, he’s pitched to a 3.90 ERA, 4.73 FIP, and a career-high 21.7% strikeout rate in 55.1 innings as a swingman.
Content Source: blogs.fangraphs.com