ARLINGTON -- Rangers right-hander Nathan Eovaldi’s Cy Young bid has come to an end.
The 35-year-old has a right rotator cuff strain and is likely done for the season, president of baseball operations Chris Young announced on Tuesday.
Eovaldi last pitched on Aug. 22, when he threw seven innings of one-run ball in a win over the Guardians at Globe Life Field. He said he felt some soreness over the next couple of days, leading to him shutting down his regularly scheduled bullpen and getting an MRI.
“Obviously, it's a big blow,” Young said. “He's been just a tremendous teammate and competitor for us all year long. We hate to see this happen to somebody who's been so important to the organization, but it seems par for the course with how some of the season has gone. So hate it for Evo, hate it for the team.”
Eovaldi has been one of the best pitchers in the sport when healthy this season, posting an 11-3 record with a 1.73 ERA in 22 starts with 129 K's over 130 innings. That ERA was the best among pitchers with at least 100 innings this season, heading into Tuesday. His 21.8 percent strikeout-minus-walk rate was tied with teammate Jacob deGrom for seventh-best.
Eovaldi missed a few weeks in June due to right elbow inflammation, but he bounced right back in July and August, allowing only 10 earned runs over his past nine starts. The Rangers were 9-0 in his nine starts since the beginning of July, with Eovaldi going 7-0 with a 1.56 ERA and 0.83 WHIP over that span with nine walks to 54 strikeouts.
“I want to be able to go out there and take the ball,” Eovaldi said. “I try to do it and take a lot of pride in being able to go every five days. To not be able to do that, and again, to have the outcome that we have now, it's very tough for me. You always feel like there's some way to be able to prevent an injury from happening, and unfortunately, I wasn't able to do that.”
It’s an undeniable blow for the Rangers as a team, but it’s also disappointing for Eovaldi, who was on a historic pace and could have challenged Tarik Skubal and Co. in the American League Cy Young Award race.
Eovaldi reached qualifying status for one day after this last start, and briefly held the official MLB ERA lead, but he would have needed to make every start through the end of the season to qualify.
“The season that I was having, you start to feel the vibes around the clubhouse, in the stadium, and everybody gets excited when you're going out there taking the field,” Eovaldi said. “I'm not trying to just achieve this for myself, but for the Rangers and for the team. Whenever you get that kind of love and support from your teammates, that's what you're playing for, right? Again, to have that kind of thing taken away and stopped now, it's tough.”
This news is yet another painful development for a club that is 4 1/2 games back of the last AL Wild Card spot with a 67-67 record. Eovaldi joins a host of Rangers who have suffered injuries within the past week or so. That includes second baseman Marcus Semien (left foot fracture), first baseman Jake Burger (left wrist sprain) and outfielder Evan Carter (right wrist fracture).
Semien and Carter, like Eovaldi, are likely done for the year.
Outfielder Sam Haggerty (left ankle inflammation) and relievers Jon Gray (right shoulder nerve irritation) and Cole Winn (right arm fatigue) also landed on the injured list over the past 10 days.
“Nobody's going to feel sorry for us,” Young said. “So we're going to show up today, take the field with the expectation of winning. That's my expectation. … [But] I’ve never seen a week like this. We'll go back in 10-plus days, but from Jon Gray to Cole Winn to Sam Haggerty to Jake Burger to Evan Carter to Marcus Semien to Nathan Eovaldi, I just have never seen anything like it.”