ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — The Texas Rangers swapped right-handed relievers on the 15-day injured list on Saturday, placing Jakob Junis on the IL with a right hip impingement and activating 40-year-old Chris Martin after his second stint out because of a right shoulder issue.
Rangers president of baseball operations Chris Young also said left-handed reliever Jalen Beeks would have season-ending surgery for a flexor tendon strain. Beeks was close to being activated from the IL after being out since June 10 with lower back spasms when he started having elbow soreness during his rehab.
Junis has been one of the team's most reliable relievers, going 1-1 with five saves and a 2.80 ERA over 35 1/3 innings in 31 appearances. Young expressed hope that Junis would be out for only the 15-day period.
Martin, who is 1-1 with a 7.84 ERA in 12 games this season, missed 31 games from mid-April to mid-May and then 30 more games that included all of June because of a right shoulder impingement. Beeks was 2-1 with a 3.81 ERA in 29 appearances.
The shuffling of relievers came on the same day that right-handed starter Jack Leiter said he felt good in his recovery and hoped to pitch again this season after arthroscopic surgery June 23 to remove an extra but unneeded bone from behind his right ankle bone.
Only a small percentage of people are born with the tiny “os trigonum” bone. Repeated movements can crunch that between the ankle and heel bones, and be particularly problematic for athletes and dancers.
“I think just the way that I push off is particularly aggressive with that back foot, so it was causing problems,” Leiter said.
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With his mechanics affected by compensating, Leiter lost all three of his June starts and had a 9.88 ERA in that span. He was already dealing with the ankle problem before aggravating it when slipping on an on-deck circle while running to back up an errant throw April 22.
“I think that fall kind of jarred (the bone) loose,” Leiter said in the clubhouse before Saturday's game. “And it kind of sped up what I think was probably the inevitable, that I was going to have to get it removed at some point.”
The 26-year-old Leiter, the second overall pick by the Rangers in the 2021 amateur draft, is 3-7 with a 5.29 ERA this season.
While there is really no blueprint to follow for a timeline on rehab from such a procedure, Young and Leiter both said recovery should be shortened since there was nothing repaired through surgery that has to heal.
“I definitely feel very hopeful that I’ll be pitching by the end of the season. What the exact timeline looks like, it's hard to say,” Leiter said. “But I’m definitely wanting to be kind of more on the aggressive side ... because it’s not like they they added anything in or went in and surgically repaired anything.”
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