Rangers Set Sunday Pitching Lineup
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The Texas Rangers will pitch two from last year’s rotation in Goodyear against the Cleveland Guardians.
Jon Gray will make his first start of Spring Training as the Texas Rangers announced their pitching lineup for Sunday’s game with the Cleveland Guardians.
The game will be the Cactus League game away from Surprise and will take place at the Guardians’ complex in Goodyear. The Rangers will also play in Goodyear on Monday against Cincinnati.
The probable lineup for the Rangers on Sunday includes Gray, a right-hander, along with LHP Cole Ragans, RHP Zack Littell, RHP Jacob Barnes, RHP Marc Church, RHP Ricky Vanasco and LHP Dominic Leone.
Ragans was a member of the Rangers rotation for the final two months of the 2022 season. Littell, Barnes, Church and Leone are part of the minor-league camp. Leone pitched for the Giants the past two seasons, but never played for Rangers manager Bruce Bochy. Leone also spent time with the St. Louis Cardinals under current Rangers pitching coach Mike Maddux.
Gray went 7-7 with a 3.96 ERA in 24 starts last season, but he missed three stretches of the season, including a two-month stretch with an oblique injury.
He said earlier in camp that all of that is behind him and that ready to roll.
“It was super-frustrating,” Gray said of last season. “You know, to pitch with a leg brace (in May) and then the oblique injury happened (in August). You can’t say you’re 100 percent away from that, but that’s my goal, to be healthy and to not let something like that creep back in.”
Ragans went 0-3 with a 4.95 ERA in nine games (all starts). He was called up in August. The 2016 first-round pick had missed three seasons of baseball due to two Tommy John surgeries and the 2020 COVID shutdown of minor-league baseball.
Ragans is vying for a bullpen role as the Rangers have six veteran starters in camp — Gray, Martín Pérez, Jacob deGrom, Andrew Heaney, Jake Odorizzi and Nathan Eovaldi.
Of the scheduled pitchers, Church is the only Rangers that will have already thrown in a game by Sunday. He gave up a walk-off home run to the Royals on Friday in the ninth inning.
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