Rangers reliever Brock Burke had surgery Thursday to repair a fractured metacarpal in his right (non-throwing) hand, according to Kennedy Landry of MLB.com. It is uncertain how long he will be out of play. Texas placed Burke on the 60-day injured list this week, putting him out until at least the middle of June.
Burke suffered the injury last week when he punched a dugout wall in frustration. That came on the heels of another poor outing in what had been a rough start to the season. The southpaw has given up five runs through his first three innings. Burke had been searching for a rebound after a pedestrian 2023 campaign. In 59 2/3 innings a year ago, he pitched to a 4.37 ERA while allowing nearly two home runs per nine.
As recently as 2022, Burke looked like a potential building block. He led MLB with 82 1/3 relief innings, managing a sub-2.00 ERA with a 27.4% strikeout rate. The former Rays draftee has not managed to repeat that success even though his velocity and swing-and-miss rates haven’t changed much over the last year-plus.
Texas is short on left-handed bullpen alternatives. Jake Latz is the only southpaw currently in the MLB relief corps. He had been terrific in his first nine appearances, but lost Friday night to the Braves after giving up a grand slam to Travis d’Arnaud (his third homer of the game). Antoine Kelly is on the 40-man roster but has yet to make the majors. Chasen Shreve, Danny Duffy, and Blake Taylor are non-roster options for Triple-A Round Rock.
