Rangers Spring Training Update: Jacob deGrom, Kyle Higashioka, Kumar Rocker and more

The Texas Rangers are nine games into the spring and are off to a 3-5-1 start after a 9-4 loss the the Milwaukee Brewers at America Family Field at Phoenix on Saturday afternoon.

The offense has been productive. Prior to Saturday's game, the Rangers rank among the top 10 as a team in batting average (.267), home runs (13) RBIs (46), slugging (.471) and OPS (.787) among all 30 MLB teams this spring. It's the pitching that has been the biggest struggle for Texas throughout the first two weeks of games.

It's still should be no cause for panic among the fanbase. Spring training is a place to get back into baseball, iron out the kinks and even work on a handful of improvements to your game.

No need to worry about Kumar Rocker's struggles while working on new pitches

Right-hander Kumar Rocker is one of those players using the spring to add to his repertoire of pitches. In his first start, Rocker leaned on his curveball as well as adding a cutter to his pitch mix. The second start on Saturday was more of the same, testing out the new pitches to see if they can be effective pitches.

While it hasn't been the smoothest transition, surrendering eight earned runs in two innings as his ERA has ballooned to a less than stellar 36.00 and batters are hitting .615 against the 25-year-old. Yes, he was testing pitches out but the worrisome area for Rocker was his lack of fastball command which made every other ineffective breaking ball seem like meatballs to hitters.

It still shouldn't cause worry for Rangers' fans. I imagine over the final few weeks of spring training, Rocker will either get a better feel of those pitchers or slowly start eliminating them and focus on honing in the others to get ready for the year.

Rangers set date for Jacob deGrom's first spring training start in 2025

Speaking of pitching, we still have yet to see Jacob deGrom take the mound in a game this spring. However that will be coming soon as manager Bruce Bochy announced on Saturday that deGrom will make his 2025 spring debut on Friday, March 7 against the Colorado Rockies.

deGrom threw a live bullpen session on Saturday and after issuing a four-pitch walk he settled down getting a few groundouts and two strikeouts on 25 pitches against Joc Pederson and Kevin Pillar.

Outside of his bullpen sessions early in camp, it was all quiet on the deGrom front for a bit as he didn't appear in a game among the team's first rotation of pitchers this spring. Some fans could've interpreted it as him potentially being hurt but there was no indication of that. Now that we officially have word on deGrom, it seems that Bochy and staff are slowing him in, not trying to overdo it in his first fully healthy spring training in a few seasons.

Rangers' offense runs through Kyle Higahsioka lately

I mentioned the offense at the top. There really hasn't been a better example of hot offense this spring than catcher Kyle Higashioka. In eight at-bats the backstop is slashing .500/.500/1.375 and a 1.875 OPS.

During Friday's game against the Cubs, Higashioka went 2-for-2 with two home runs and six runs batted in. It was the organization's most RBIs in a spring training game since Nelson Cruz recorded six in 2011 against the Reds.

The Rangers are also seeing productive returns from Josh Smith, Adolis Garcia, Jake Burger Jonathan Ornelas and 22-year-old outfield Alejandro Osuna. What Texas needs to see as spring goes on, is positives from the middle infield duo of Marcus Semien and Corey Seager as well as DH Joc Pederson. It would also be nice to see Evan Carter get back into a rhythm in the batter's box.