The Rangers are down to one arm and one shot.
Texas announced Friday night that Nathan Eovaldi will start Saturday against the Minnesota Twins, a move that puts plenty on the line for a pitcher the club is counting on to steady a season that is slipping fast. Eovaldi has not started since coming off the injured list and returning in relief on Sept. 12, and nobody is expecting him to give the Rangers a full starter’s load. Still, after the way the standings broke Friday, whatever he can provide matters.
Eovaldi missed more than a month because of right posterior elbow inflammation. There wasn’t enough time to send him out on a rehab assignment and build him back up the traditional way, so Texas used him as a bulk reliever. That usage has produced mixed results so far: he’s made four appearances, gone 1-1, posted a 5.19 ERA and blown one save.
The early workload has been heavy enough to suggest the Rangers were never hiding him for Saturday. In his first two outings, he topped 40 pitches both times. On Sept. 16 against Boston, he threw 46 pitches and worked four innings of one-hit ball.
Texas has seen this script before. In 2023, Eovaldi came back from injury at the start of September and built himself up with the Rangers for similar reasons.
He made six starts that month and finished 1-2 with a 9.30 ERA, including two rough outings late in the regular season. One of them came on Sept. 29 against Seattle, when he allowed seven earned runs and needed 80 pitches.
Then the postseason arrived, and so did the version Texas is hoping to summon now. In six playoff starts that year, Eovaldi went 5-0 with a 2.95 ERA, struck out 41 and walked 10 in 36.2 innings. The Rangers rode that run all the way to their first World Series title.
That is the standard Saturday now. Anything less could be fatal to Texas’ playoff chase.
The Rangers dropped Friday’s game to the Twins, 10-2, and at 79-81 they no longer control much of anything. Houston also lost, falling to the Athletics in West Sacramento, which left the two clubs tied for the AL West lead. But the margin for error is almost gone.
The Astros can clinch the division Saturday with a win over the Athletics and a Rangers loss. If that happens, Houston would move one game ahead with one game left, and even a tie after Sunday would still leave Texas behind because the Astros own the tiebreaker.
Texas’ only path is to finish one game better than Houston. If both teams win their final two games, the Astros go on. And in this setup, the AL West winner gets the lone remaining playoff berth in the American League, with a trip to host either the Cleveland Guardians or the Chicago White Sox in the AL wild card round.
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