Texas Rangers: The 26th man on the Opening Day roster will surprise you

Forget about position battles and general uncertainty, the Texas Rangers are in the business of plot twists!

The Rangers stuck to their word, waiting until the final hours on Thursday leading up to Opening Day to set their roster ahead of their first game against the Kansas City Royals.

Who took that heavily-anticipated final roster spot? The answer will most definitely surprise you.

The Texas Rangers surprised folks by adding LHP Kolby Allard as their 26th man.

That’s right folks, not Adolis Garcia, not Hyeon-jong Yang or Hunter Wood, but Kolby Allard!

This decision certainly came out of left field, which seems to be in typical Texas Rangers fashion this spring.

Earlier in the week, the Rangers designated Rougned Odor for assignment, which allowed INF Charlie Culberson to take the 25th spot on the roster, leaving that final vacancy up for grabs.

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Texas had hinted that the final spot would likely be occupied by a pitcher, but we didn’t expect Allard to be that guy.

The 23-year-old southpaw was part of spring training roster cuts originally, and was slated to start the season in Round Rock, but had a decent camp (3.86 ERA, 15 strikeouts in nearly 12 innings pitched).

Allard is also on the 40-man roster already, which likely factored into the decision to include him on the initial 26 man pool as well. Yang, Wood and Garcia were all non-roster invitees.

Allard will likely occupy a spot in the injury-decimated Rangers bullpen as the the team seeks depth there to help them weather the storm through the first few weeks without some of their more important relievers.

While Yang, Wood and Garcia were all deserving of that final roster spot, the good news is that all three will be on the Rangers’ taxi squad to begin the season, meaning they’ll be available to play in the event of an injury or other circumstance.

The Texas Rangers have given us plenty of suspense and plot twists so far in 2021, and this latest roster decision is just the next of what we think will be many to come during the season.