Jack Leiter injury update has Rangers turning up the pressure on this recovering pitcher

Jack Leiter is on the shelf for an unspecified amount of time following arthroscopic ankle surgery for what is being called "posterior right ankle impingement", and the Texas Rangers clearly don't have a good plan to replace him.

They have already made the call to the farm and brought up their most major league-ready arm in Jose Corniell. In Leiter's stead, it didn't go well for the wide-eyed rookie, giving up five earned runs on seven hits and two walks in 3.1 innings in the June 23 6-4 loss to the upstart Marlins.

Now comes stopgap solution number two, which involves sending Corniell back down and replacing him with another highly touted Double-A prospect in Winston Santos. Santos has compiled a 7.44 ERA in 42.1 innings at Frisco. He certainly can't be viewed as the long-term solution.

So the Rangers are going to need former Ranger and 2023 World Series hero Jordan Montgomery to return as soon as possible if they hope to fill the void in the rotation.

The Rangers need to hope they receive the 2023 version of Jordan Montgomery, and quickly

Since leaving Arlington after his brilliant 2023 postseason run for what he hoped would be greener pastures filled with a lot more "green" in his bank account, things have not gone well for the big left-hander at all.

He ended up passing up several big deals and was left holding the bag. He returned to Arizona on a one-year deal worth $25 million. He proceeded to log a 6.23 ERA in 113 innings pitched and was not re-signed by the club. Montgomery missed all of 2025 after undergoing Tommy John surgery.

In a bit of a surprise move, the Rangers brought Monty back on a one-year, $1.25 million deal with the hope that he could rehab from the injury and be ready to pitch sometime in the middle of the 2026 season. Well, here we are, and it is the perfect time for Montgomery to come in and replace Leiter at the bottom of the rotation.

Of course, the organization is crossing its fingers that the lefty can return to his 2023 form, where he was like Rembrandt using off-speed pitches to paint the corners and keep hitters off balance. He went 4-2 with a 2.79 ERA in 67.2 innings over the second half of 2023 and then went 3-1 during the magical postseason run to the top of the mountain.

Montgomery isn't going to blow you away with an overpowering fastball, but he is extremely crafty and relies on the change of speed and pinpoint accuracy to get outs.

The team has taken Montgomery's rehab very slowly as he hadn't thrown a pitch since 2024, but they may want to ramp up his workload given how depleted the Rangers' rotation is. He made his first scheduled rehab assignment on June 21 at Double-A Frisco. He threw 13 pitches (10 strikes) and allowed one hit. It was a good beginning.

Skip Schumaker said that Monty will, "go one-innings stints, and then he’ll go one-to-two innings stints after that”. Eventually, they will move him toward a 75-pitch goal before even thinking of bringing him up to face major league hitters.

It didn't take long for him to progress to the "two-inning" phase of the plan, tossing two perfect frames on Saturday for Frisco and compiling three strikeouts.

Anyway you cut it, the spotlight has just gotten a lot brighter, and everyone will be watching how - and how quickly- Montgomery progresses as there is no option within the organization to replace Leiter. Ideally, the Rangers would like to have him back before the trade deadline on August 3.

Cal Quantrill isn't the answer, so the Rangers will either have to swing a deal for a temporary replacement or cobble together a plan with pitchers currently in the system. It's not off to a good start with Corniell getting shellacked, and Santos getting the call with an ERA of over seven as a RoughRider.

So far, so good, but we're not out of the woods yet. If Montgomery takes too long to come back, the void in the rotation could prove fatal to Texas's playoff hopes. That's only half the battle. Montgomery will have to prove he can be effective when he finally returns to the bigs; the Rangers will truly be between a rock and a hard place.

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