ARLINGTON, Texas — One of the biggest surprises of the 2023 MLB season is that, here in late June, the Texas Rangers are still leading the AL West over the Houston Astros.
Texas finished a disappointing 68-94 in 2022, and after a few offseason moves, including signing Jacob deGrom to a five-year deal, it looked as if they would be contenders again. Then deGrom started the season on the injury list, tried to come back, and ended up being lost for the rest of the season and undergoing Tommy John surgery.
But in his absence,another off-season acquisition, Nathan Eovaldi, was stepping in as the ace for the Rangers' pitching staff and doing a terrific job. Eovaldi finished May 4-0 in five starts with a minuscule 0.96 ERA.
But some cracks have been forming in June, and while Eovaldi hasn’t been awful - the Rangers are 2-1 in his five starts - there have been some noticeable changes month to month, mainly in his velocity. Brice Paterik of the Locked On Rangers podcast discussed the velocity drop on the latest episode of his show and wonders if Rangers fans should be worried.
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Paterik brought up Eovaldi’s previous start against the White Sox on June 20, in which Eovaldi lasted six innings but gave up four runs on five hits, including two home runs—one to Eloy Jiménez and the other to Elvis Andrus. Eovaldi's four-seam fastball velocity, which averaged 95.4 MPH on June 15 against the Angels, dropped to 93.8 against the White Sox.
“I’m starting to get a little concerned because I think that Eovaldi absolutely should have been given normal rest.” Paterik added, “His ERA on four days’ rest is 3.27.” The other concern is that the Rangers are playing 30 games in 31 days and that Eovaldi isn’t getting enough rest. “Maybe Heaney could have started on Sunday or even Corey Bradford.”
A positive is that Eovaldi’s velocity was up a bit against the Yankees on Sunday afternoon, averaging 94.4, but it still wasn’t his season average of nearly 96. After the outing, Eovaldi said, via MLB.com, “I felt the outing went well, and I felt strong all the way through.”
It’s also important to note that Eovaldi is a two-time Tommy John recipient, is 33 years old, has nearly 1,400 innings on his arm, and is tied for the Major League lead this season with 105 and one-third innings pitched. At his current pace, he’s projected to pitch 210 innings, but Eovaldi has never pitched more than 200 in a season—he was a third of an inning shy in 2014 with the Marlins.
When he seemed like an unstoppable force in May, Eovaldi threw 37 and two-third innings, had three scoreless outings, and only gave up four earned runs. This month, he’s thrown 31 innings, only had one scoreless outing (on June 4 against the Mariners), and has surrendered 13 runs.
Paterik also discussed how this same thing happened to Eovaldi last season when he was with the Red Sox. He pitched at an All-Star pace and made his first All-Star team, then fell off a cliff in the second half. He had 13 starts in the first half of the season and only made seven starts in the second half. It wasn’t a terrible year for Eovaldi, but history could be repeating itself in 2023.
With limited off days, it’s clear he’s getting a little tired, but if Bruce Bochy wants to preserve Nathan Eovaldi’s arm for the stretch run, he’s going to need to give him a bit of a break now and then.
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