At 21-16, the Texas Rangers are first in the AL West standings, but it hasn’t been an easy stroll so far. They have an entire rotation of quality starting pitchers on the injured list, and while their offense has remained relatively intact, it has not yet been at full strength. Third baseman Josh Jung had wrist surgery in early April, first baseman Nathaniel Lowe missed the first three weeks of the season with a sore oblique, and shortstop Corey Seager has started slow after a sports hernia surgery in January kept him out for most of spring training. And on Monday, rookie Wyatt Langford, a first-round pick last June who rocketed to the majors to start this season, landed on the IL with a right hamstring strain, retroactive to Sunday. He’s expected to miss three to four weeks, which should keep him out until the end of the month.
Langford started Saturday’s game, a 15-4 win over the Royals, in left field but was removed in the fifth inning with what was initially diagnosed as hamstring tightness; an MRI later revealed the strain. Texas called up infielder Jonathan Ornelas from Triple-A Round Rock to fill out the 26-man roster.
Mired in a 1-for-15 slump following his first major league homer, an inside-the-parker on April 28, Langford has a brutal 68 wRC+ over his first 31 big league games. Things were bad enough that it was fair to wonder if the Rangers would temporarily send him to the minors to work things out — as the Orioles did recently with Jackson Holliday — but despite Langford’s woes, Texas doesn’t exactly have a better option than him for its lineup.
