KANSAS CITY, Mo. — On Tuesday, the Rangers exhaled. Again.
It appears for the second time in four games, they’ve avoided a major pitching injury. Jacob deGrom, who left Monday’s start after four no-hit innings with wrist soreness, said he expects to make his next start, as planned. He is scheduled to pitch Sunday against Oakland.
“I actually feel better today than I did yesterday,” deGrom said Tuesday afternoon. “So that’s a good sign. We did some stuff in the training room and everything feels good. So I fully anticipate making my next start.”
After meeting with deGrom, manager Bruce Bochy also said he was optimistic about deGrom and has tentative plans for him to pitch. But as evidenced by the way the Rangers treated him after he arrived at spring training with some slight soreness, expect the Rangers to err on the side of caution if anything seems amiss.
“It was great news for us,” Bochy said of deGrom’s condition. “[Wednesday] he’ll play catch, and we’ll check out how it feels. We don’t know, exactly how he’s going to feel tomorrow, but right now it’s all positive and he’s positive on where he’s at with that arm. That’s good news. I think we’re planning right now that we have a possibility of making the next start. But we will evaluate the next couple of days.”
It also appears Jon Gray will make his scheduled start on Friday against Oakland. Gray left Saturday’s start against Houston after getting hit in the right forearm by a 109-mph line drive from Yanier Diaz in the third inning. He feared he’d broken his arm at the time, but emerged with just a bruise and threw his regular between-starts bullpen on Tuesday.
