Jacob deGrom's Thursday night outing on the outskirts of Disneyland came to a screeching halt.
Following two innings on the hill against the Los Angeles Angels, the Texas Rangers pulled deGrom due to right triceps fatigue. Prior to being pulled, deGrom had given up six hits, one walk and two runs, throwing 53 pitches.
As the Angels' broadcast returned for the bottom of the third inning, a video was shown of deGrom expressing discomfort after throwing a pitch in the bottom of the second to second baseman Adam Frazier, who went on to hit an RBI single in the at-bat. Peyton Gray relieved deGrom, with the right-hander being one of five relievers Texas used in an eventual 7-0 loss.
"I’m not too concerned," deGrom, who's expected to undergo imaging Friday, said about the injury after the loss, according to MLB.com. "Hopefully I’ll make my next [start], we’ll see. Tonight, it just — there in the second it was tight and just didn’t want to loosen up. I haven’t really had that before. … Just see how it is tomorrow [Friday] and then come up with a plan. We’ve been doing a lot to treat that area. That’s what I normally do in my routine. But this last, whatever, week, I guess, it just didn’t recover, and then I felt it tonight there in the second.
"They [the Rangers] made the decision that it was not best to go forward."
On the season, deGrom, a two-time Cy Young Award winner, owns a 3.95 ERA, a 1.17 WHIP and a 98 ERA+, while posting 147 strikeouts and 1.7 wins above replacement over 120 ⅔ innings pitched (23 starts). deGrom's ERA and ERA+ are career-worsts.
While the 38-year-old deGrom has been plagued by elbow and shoulder injuries, among other issues, over his career, he has been relatively healthy over the last two years, being scratched from just one start this season due to a hip strain and recording a 2.97 ERA and an 0.92 WHIP over 30 starts in 2025, earning an All-Star nod in that season.
On the injury front, though, Texas is without right-handers Jack Leiter, who's dealing with an ankle injury, and Nathan Eovaldi, who was placed on the injured list earlier this week with posterior elbow inflammation.
As for how the Angels scored their seven runs on Thursday night, Frazier and center fielder Mike Trout each had RBI singles in the bottom of the second, with Los Angeles later stringing together a four-run fifth inning. In said frame, the Angels got an RBI single from shortstop Denzer Guzman, a two-run single from right fielder Josh Lowe and an RBI force-out from left fielder Jose Siri, who then had an RBI single in the seventh. All nine starters for the Angels had a hit. Meanwhile, they got six scoreless innings from right-hander Walbert Ureña, marking his second shutout in three outings.
The loss was the Rangers' third consecutive defeat, with them losing three out of four to the Angels in a four-game series. While they have a losing record (60-62), the Rangers are just a half-game behind the Detroit Tigers for the No. 3 American League wild-card seed and two games behind the Houston Astros for first place in the AL West.