5 things we learned on this Texas Rangers road trip

Mitch Garver excelling both behind the plate and in the batters' box

Garver has been a much maligned player for Texas since they acquired him in the hours after the lockout ended back in 2022. He was traded to Texas and was seemingly injured when the trade was made. He required elbow surgery and that ended his season on July 10th of 2022.

Garver came back this season and then strained his knee and missed two months this season. When he did finally get healthy Garver was not productive. His power was missing and he was not the offensive threat that Texas thought they had traded for.

That is until Jonah Heim went down with a wrist injury in late July. Garver took over as the starting catcher and has helped lead this pitching staff and been an offensive weapon for this team. In the 12 games Garver has started in that time, he had a .355 batting average. three home runs, and 10 RBIs. He has become a force in the middle of the lineup.

The good news though is that Jonah Heim was activated off the IL on Sunday and did start the series finale against the Giants. Heim went 0-3, with a walk. He currently can only bat left-handed and so that does open up the door for Garver to start against left-handed pitchers and Heim to start against righties. One thing to keep in mind is that Garver does struggle in the DH role. He has a career .203 batting average when he DH's. Hopefully he can maintain a hot bat even if he is not strapping on the catching gear.

Next: A slumping young player starting to get back on track