Rangers' fans emotional 24 hours processing latest Cody Bradford and Tyler Mahle news

Although the Texas Rangers avoided one potential major injury on Wednesday, another one popped up that had fans praying for the injuries to please stop.

Ahead of Tuesday's spring game agains the Los Angeles Angels, the Rangers scratched Tyler Mahle from his start due to forearm soreness and ordered an MRI to see if there was any structural damage. Then Wednesday, lefty Cody Bradford was scratched due to elbow soreness.

Both Mahle and Bradford's MRIs came back clean, revealing no structural damage and both players are expected to return. Mahle will get back to pitching in a few days while Bradford will be shut down for the next four to five days as Texas waits for the soreness to die down.

Neither sounds as serious or concerning to the Rangers since timetables for their return were provided but you never know what can happen when players attempt to recover from any sort of injury.

It's been an absolute whirlwind for Rangers' fans on social media over the last 24 hours, sparking flashbacks to last season where injuries derailed the team's pursuit for back-to-back World Series championships.

Responses from the fans were pretty on brand for a fandom experiencing tough injury news to intrumental members of the rotation. One user wrote "Back to back scratches. 2025, Gray will be our 2nd starter by the end of the year, book it." Another user said "Why can't we just have a healthy rotation for once?! It's been my experience that elbow soreness never ends well."

The social media takes were magnified when you remember that both Bradford and Mahle were two of the players sidelined for majority of the 2024 season with respective injruies. Mahle was recovering from Tommy John and only made three starts and Bradford went down in April with a back injury that caused him to miss the middle of the season.

When Tuesday's scratch of Mahle happened, the Texas turned to 24-year-old Jack Leiter to replace him and Leiter continued his strong spring, throwing 2.2 innings of one run ball. Leiter is likely to be on top of the list of potential candidates to replace either Mahle or Bradford in the rotation if they need to start the year on the Injured List. Others include Dane Dunning, Kumar Rocker and non-roster invitee Adrian Houser.

This could also be the push that the Rangers' President of Baseball Operations Chris Young needed to be proactive before the season kicks off and hit the trade market to acquire a bonafide starter to the list.