WEST SACRAMENTO — The story of the Rangers’ week has been the influx of injuries, hitting one after the other over the course of 10 days. The biggest may have been Nathan Eovaldi, who was in the midst of the best year of his career when he went down with a right rotator cuff strain.
It’s a loss. A major one, no doubt about it. But a guy named Jacob deGrom is still here.
On Sunday afternoon, in the blistering heat of West Sacramento, deGrom dealt five scoreless innings against the A’s, carrying the Rangers to a 9-6 victory and a series sweep. It’s the first time Texas has swept the A’s since Sept. 22-24, 2015, at the Oakland Coliseum.
“It definitely isn’t fun for Nathan,” said Josh Smith, who reached base five times in the win. “We’re gonna have to find a way to pick him up the rest of this year. But deGrom, in my opinion, is the best in the world. He comes in, does his job and gives us a chance to win every time he’s out there.”
Of course, that’s what deGrom did on Sunday, allowing only three baserunners in his five innings, thanks to a pair of singles from Jacob Wilson and a walk from Lawrence Butler. But he collected six strikeouts in a relatively stress-free outing.
Manager Bruce Bochy opted to remove deGrom from the game after five innings and just 79 pitches (53 strikes). But with a 5-0 lead at the time, Bochy felt like his ace had taken the Rangers far enough.
deGrom said he felt like he could go further, but at 150 innings, this final month of the season will be about managing his workload in the middle of a postseason push.
“The goal is to move it to the postseason,” deGrom said. “What innings are we going to be comfortable going to? If we get in, how many am I going to throw there? We’re trying to tiptoe that line. That’s why we have to win now. It’s going to be something that we gotta keep an eye on and go from there.”
The Rangers had lost each of deGrom’s last five starts, matching the longest team losing streak in his career, including an 0-5 stretch in 2018 and again in ’19 with the Mets. His teams have never dropped six straight deGrom starts.
Texas continued that trend thanks to a dominant — yet brief — outing from deGrom, as well as yet another offensive explosion and homers from both Josh Jung and Joc Pederson.
It wasn’t easy, especially as an eight-run blowout shrunk to a three-run lead in the eighth inning. But a win is a win, no matter how easy it comes.
“It’s nice [to get back into the win column],” deGrom said. “The goal is to win baseball games. So I try to go out there and give them a chance. … I’ve said it before about this team, we come in every day the same way, ready to win. We had some tough stretches, but that’s in the past. You gotta win the game today. That’s how everybody shows up, the same way, with the goal to win that day and go from there.”
The Rangers’ injury woes are no secret at this point. Eovaldi is just one of many to go down within the last two weeks. But Texas has found a way to bounce back each time and keep itself in the thick of the American League Wild Card race.
Without Corey Seager and Marcus Semein, other guys are stepping up. On Sunday, that included Pederson, Jung and Smith. Tomorrow, it could be somebody else. No matter who it is, the flurry of injuries isn’t stopping them.
“It’s a lot more fun than not winning,” deGrom said. “Everybody’s keeping it light, showing up the same way every day. We’ve got a month of baseball left, so we gotta play really good baseball. We’ve got some good teams we’re about to play, but we gotta keep going out there and doing what we’re doing right now.”
