Rangers shortstop Corey Seager left Friday’s game due to what the team described as a right thumb sprain. He suffered the injury while diving into second base for a double in the eighth inning, and Seager was removed for a pinch-runner.
Manager Bruce Bochy told reporters (including Jeff Wilson of Rangers Today) that Seager’s x-rays were negative and that the shortstop was considered day-to-day, but Wilson tweeted this afternoon that Seager will undergo an MRI to determine any further damage. Even if the MRI comes back clean, Wilson writes that “there seems to be an expectation that he will need time on the IL.”
It would mark Seager’s second trip to the injured list this season, as he previously missed about a month of action due to a hamstring strain. The Rangers can only hope that Seager’s MRI reveals nothing more than inflammation, as the 29-year-old is on pace for the best season of his nine-year MLB career. Seager is hitting .350/.413/.631 with 15 homers over 298 plate appearances, and was voted as the American League’s starting shortstop for the All-Star Game.
Seager signed a 10-year, $325MM free agent deal with Texas during the 2021-22 offseason, and he delivered 33 homers and a .245/.317/.455 slash line over 663 PA in 2022. It was an underwhelming performance in terms of bottom-line numbers, but a .242 BABIP and outstanding advanced metrics indicated that Seager was unusually unlucky last year, so it isn’t a surprise that he has bounced back in such tremendous fashion this year.
While pretty much the entire Texas lineup is posting above-average to great numbers this season, losing Seager for an extended amount of time would obviously be a huge blow to a team with World Series aspirations. The Rangers were already expected to be pretty aggressive at the trade deadline, but if Seager’s availability for the stretch run is now in doubt, the front office might turn some attention from the pitching staff to add another bat to the mix. Fortunately for the Rangers, Ezequiel Duran already projects as a capable fill-in for Seager at shortstop, as Duran performed well during Seager’s earlier stint on the IL.