Rangers Targeting Intriguing Spot for Jacob deGrom and Season Debut

Now that the Texas Rangers have decided to make Nathan Eovaldi the opening day starter, the next logical decision is where to slot Jacob deGrom?

Turns out they have an idea.

Per Evan Grant of The Dallas Morning News on X (formerly Twitter), Texas is targeting the Rangers’ home opener with Cincinnati on April 3 for deGrom’s debut.

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That would be the Rangers’ seventh game of the season, and it would mean Texas would take an entire turn through their rotation before getting to the 37-year-old right-hander. How could the Rangers do that?

Where Jacob deGrom Projects in Rangers Rotation

Texas Rangers starting pitcher Jacob deGrom throws the baseball during a game. — Texas Rangers starting pitcher Jacob deGrom. | Jerome Miron-Imagn Images

Texas opens the season with the Philadelphia Phillies on March 26. After that game, Texas has an off day could play a factor in pushing deGrom back to April 3. So could the idea of a different five-man rotation to start the season. Here’s one possibility:

March 26: Nathan Eovaldi

March 27: Off Day

March 28: Jack Leiter

March 29: MacKenzie Gore

March 30: Kumar Rocker

March 31: Jacob Latz

April 1: Nathan Eovaldi

The competition between Latz and Rocker has yielded good results for both pitchers. Latz will make the team, either as a starter or a reliever. But he’s stretched out to start. So is Rocker, who has responded well in recent starts. Texas could take an entire turn with those five starters and give Eovaldi an extra day of rest. The Rangers could also deploy a bullpen game in one of those games.

The trick is the April 1 game. After the off day, Texas has five games in a row. The off day allows the Rangers to start Eovaldi on normal rest, but not Leiter or whichever starter takes the March 28 game. It’s the reason why the Rangers could still opt to start deGrom on April 1 to keep everyone on time. deGrom threw 47 pitches in his last spring training outing and threw extra pitches in the bullpen.

Texas took steps to ensure deGrom got extra rest whenever possible last year, leveraging scheduled off days to try and get him more than traditional rest. Last season he pitched in the fourth game of the season and didn’t pitch on the traditional fifth day for a month.

If deGrom pitches on April 3 against Cincinnati, he could start on normal rest on April 8 at home against Seattle, followed by an extra day rest on April 14 at the Athletics. It would ensure his first road start would be in mid-April in California and not in early April in Baltimore weather that can be unpredictable.

The only thing set in stone for now is that Eovaldi will start opening day. deGrom’s slot is still to be determined.