Rangers' Nathan Eovaldi: Receiving Opening Day nod
Rotowire
The Rangers named Eovaldi as their starter against the Red Sox for Opening Day on March 27.
It'll be the fifth Opening Day start of Eovaldi's career and his second straight for Texas. The veteran right-hander is still getting on track in spring training with seven runs allowed over nine frames, but he's coming off a 2024 campaign that saw him finish with a 3.80 ERA, 1.11 WHIP and 166:42 K:BB across 170.2 innings.
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Rangers' Nathan Eovaldi: Command issues Sunday
Rotowire
Eovaldi allowed four runs on five hits and two walks while striking out four in Sunday's spring start against the Diamondbacks.
Eovaldi threw a spring-high 75 pitches in his third Cactus League outing. He told Shawn McFarland of the Dallas Morning News he was off mechanically and struggled to locate his fastball. Beyond that, the right-hander said he felt fine and was pleased with his curveball, which elicited seven swing-and-misses (14 thrown) and none were hit into play. Eovaldi believes he knows what went wrong for him Sunday and how to correct it. Nothing has been decreed yet, but Eovaldi is a good bet to start Opening Day.
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Rangers' Nathan Eovaldi: Up to three innings
Rotowire
Eovaldi allowed one run on three hits while striking out three over three innings in Wednesday's spring start against the Guardians.
Eovaldi threw an efficient 31 pitches and came away pleased with the effort after an uneven first Cactus League start. "I felt much better this time around than the last outing," Eovaldi told Shawn McFarland of the Dallas Morning News. "I felt like my command was a lot better and I liked the shapes of my pitches." Eovaldi felt like he rushed pitches during his first outing.
Eovaldi allowed two runs on two hits and one walk while striking out one over two innings in Friday's spring opener against the Royals. He also hit a batter.
Eovaldi used his entire repertoire over the two innings, and he broke out a new two-seamer, although it was not identified as such in the Statcast box score. "I've been working on that two-seam runner," he told Kennedi Landry of MLB.com. "It wasn't as great today. In the offseason, the TrackMan results were awesome." The right-hander said he felt like he was rushing all his pitches down the mound and plans to work on slowing down his mechanics in subsequent outings.
Eovaldi agreed to a three-year, $75 million contract with the Rangers on Tuesday, Jeff Passan of ESPN.com reports.
Eovaldi turned down his $20 million player option earlier in the offseason, but he'll officially remain in Arlington on a multi-year deal that will pay him $5 million more in 2025 than if he had exercised his option. The 34-year-old righty has been fairly consistent during his time with the Rangers, posting a 3.72 ERA and 1.12 WHIP over the last two seasons, and he'll presumably follow Jacob deGrom as the second man in Texas' rotation.
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