Young slugger suffers massive setback as Rangers shuffle roster again

The Texas Rangers’ offense just can’t catch a break, and Evan Carter doesn't seem to have anything resembling injury luck. Just ahead of the team’s Sunday series finale against the Houston Astros, the club announced the young outfielder is back on the IL, and his prognosis is far from good.

Carter has missed the last few games with a quad strain. Until this morning they were hoping some days off would allow it to heal. Instead, according to manager Bruce Bochy, it’s a Grade 2 strain and is worse than they expected.

Texas Rangers place Evan Carter on IL with quad strain, expect long absence

In fact, with Carter now going back on the IL, Bochy said the Texas Rangers are expecting Carter to miss “multiple weeks.” All of this comes as yet another setback for the young star who was given another chance earlier this year to prove he belonged on the big club.

What’s got to be frustrating for Evan Carter and the Rangers is that it was this time last year that he went on the 10-day IL with a Lumbar sprain. Originally expected to come back at some point in the 2024 season, he was moved to the 60-day IL at the end of July and wasn’t activated until after the season was over.

This year, he started the season with the Rangers’ big club but struggled and was sent down to Round Rock to get his head and his swing straight. After lighting up the Triple-A ranks for a few weeks, he was recalled and looked at as part of a potential fix for an offense that still hasn’t really caught fire.

Unfortunately, even before his quad strain, he struggled at the plate. Carter is currently slashing .182/.270/.273/.543, all career lows.

With Carter headed to the injured list, the Rangers have activated Kevin Pillar, who was hardly tearing the cover off the ball before he landed himself on the IL with a .237/.237/.289/.526 slashline. That PIllar had just 1 hit in 10 PAs during his rehab stint certainly isn’t that exciting.

In announcing Evan Carter to the IL and Pillar’s activation, the Texas Rangers also announced reliever Cole Winn was demoted to Round Rock and Caleb Boushley was called up.