The Texas Rangers and Seattle Mariners may be short-handed when they play the last game of their three-game series Thursday afternoon in Arlington, Texas.
Rangers’ shortstop Corey Seager left Wednesday’s 5-1 victory over Seattle in the seventh inning with a left shin contusion after being struck by a pitch.
Seager was hit on one hop by a 0-2 pitch from Mariners reliever Austin Voth that bounced in front of the plate.
“It swelled up pretty good on the left shin,” said Rangers manager Bruce Bochy, who added that he wouldn’t know Seager’s status for the series finale until Thursday morning. “It swelled up really fast, too.”
It’s been a painful start to the season for Seager, last fall’s World Series MVP, who missed most of spring training after undergoing sports hernia surgery in late January.
The Mariners on Wednesday were without shortstop J.P. Crawford and catcher Cal Raleigh, who had batted first and third in the series opener.
Crawford was a late scratch because of right oblique soreness.
Mariners manager Scott Servais said he was unsure of Crawford’s status going forward.
“We’ll find out more in the morning where that is,” Servais said Wednesday evening. “He sensed something during batting practice. We attempted to calm it down, and the strength was adequate. But we do not know. He is going to get an MRI. And we’ll check at that. “We’ll know more in the morning.”
Raleigh homered for the fourth time in five games and stayed behind the plate for the entire nine innings in Seattle’s 4-0 victory Tuesday. He supposedly did so despite having a bad toothache.
“Never knew a tooth could cause so much pain,” Raleigh mumbled.
The player nicknamed as the “Big Dumper” underwent oral surgery Wednesday to have the tooth pulled.
Servais was confident about Raleigh’s status for the last game against the
“It was really bothering him,” Servais said. “He played with it, and I’m glad we were able to get it taken care of (Wednesday). … Hopefully he’ll be OK (and) ready to go (Thursday). Like the minute they got it out of there, he started feeling better. He’s pretty swollen. I don’t think he slept too much (Tuesday) night.
“We’ve all had a tooth issue at some point in our lives. I don’t think there’s anything worse. … He was worried about taking one off the face mask and what that was going to do. I give him a ton of credit. He’s probably one of our toughest guys. He’s got the right mentality for that position. He wanted to play (Wednesday), and I said, ‘No, you’re not playing tonight.'”
The Rangers overcame an early deficit on back-to-back homers by Adolis Garcia and Evan Carter to take the lead for good in the fourth inning.
“You’re looking for a shot in the arm,” Bochy explained. “Man, those are two big hits.”
Carter later added a run-scoring triple, while Jonathan Hernandez, David Robertson, and Grant Anderson combined for 4 1/3 innings of shutout, one-hit relief for Texas.
On Thursday, Mariners right-hander Luis Castillo (1-4, 4.40 ERA) will face Rangers lefty Andrew Heaney (0-2, 6.35). Castillo is coming off his first victory over Colorado on Saturday.
Castillo is 0-3 with a 4.91 ERA in his previous three outings versus Texas. Heaney is 4-7 with a 4.18 ERA in 20 appearances (18 starts) against Seattle.
