This week alone, the Rangers will be starting Kumar Rocker, Max Scherzer and Jacob deGrom. Rocker will be making his first start of his MLB career, deGrom will be making his first start of the 2024 season, and Scherzer will be making his first start since July. Perhaps if things had gone better for the Rangers this season, this trio rejoining the squad would mean something other than 'oh, well that's helpful I guess'.
But as it stands, this trio of hurlers will be joining a Rangers team with no chance of making the playoffs, too many injured pieces, and too much riding on them to stick it out til the end of the season. Hell, Rocker will likely be taking the rotation spot of his old Vandy teammate Jack Leiter, who was beginning to improve as a starter but just isn't 100% reliable yet. The fact that with all these great pitchers on this Rangers team, there's really three vacancies with this far to go, that's...not really something that should be happening to a team that just won the World Series last year. And even with these three returning, there's still worries that either A.) Eovaldi could miss time again, B.) deGrom could immediately need to be returned to the IL, or C.) Rocker doesn't have it yet. Meaning, folks, Jose Urena starting in September is a real possibility here.
I think the disappointment of this team can be summed up with Adolis Garcia, who was coming off several really strong years. This year he has 22 homers, 74 RBIs and is batting .219, which, despite the power numbers, is a really imbalanced, off-target year for a guy who routinely vied for 100 RBIs. Even his outfield arm is seeing a slight downturn, which, as he's 31, is somewhat understandable. It just feels like he just hit his prime, and he's just arrived as a perennial hitter, and now he's slowing down. You have to hope that he rebounds next year, because if not, it just proves how much is being lost when people are getting brought up at like 28.
You also have to figure that a lot of people might leave next year. Heaney, Scherzer, Yates, Jankowski, possibly even Eovaldi. So even if that does leave space for Rocker, Dunning and Leiter in the rotation...they all have to, like, pitch well as well. Dunning got his chance this year, his ERA rose above 5 and now he's back in the minors. Leiter fared similarly. There is a nice chance that, like with most years of Bochy ball, a year of not making it will inspire an even bigger rise the following year, and if that's the case...maybe all of this squandering the moment will have been worth it.
Coming Tonight: This guy always seems to catch fire right when you've written him off. As he has once again this year.
I was going to say that there was a time that if you had mentioned an upcoming series with Rocker, deGrom, and Scherzer pitching, as a Mets fan I would have been very excited. That's actually not quite right, because by the time we signed Max we had already let Kumar go unsigned. But it's still odd for a Mets fan. I was pretty excited about drafting Rocker for a bit there.
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