Body blows continue for Rangers with Cole Hamels out for two months

As if the Texas Rangers needed anything else to go wrong.

They learned Wednesday afternoon that their co-ace Cole Hamels would be out for the next two months with a strained right oblique. For the body blows the Rangers have been taking, many self-inflicted, the injury to Hamels seems appropriate.

The news means Wednesday night’s starter, Nick Martinez, will remain in the five-man rotation for the foreseeable future, at least until right-hander Tyson Ross is ready to come off the disabled list. Ross, a former No. 1 starter for the Padres, has slowly been building his arm back to game shape since having surgery to repair thoracic outlet syndrome in October.

Rangers general manager Jon Daniels said Ross could be available in several weeks. He’s scheduled to throw a simulated game this weekend in Seattle, his first step toward rehab starts. Ross’s return was slowed two weeks ago by upper back spasms that needed a week to calm down.

The Houston Astros’ four-run second inning Wednesday against Martinez, who was making his third start since entering the rotation in place of the injured A.J. Griffin, was more than enough against the Rangers’ sluggish offense. The Astros added four more runs in the sixth and won 10-1, their third consecutive win over the Rangers who are mired in a four-game losing streak.

Griffin returns to the rotation for the finale of the four-game set at 1 p.m. Thursday. Martinez was charged with seven runs (six earned) on nine hits in 5  1/3 and took the loss.

The Hamels news didn’t devastate the Rangers’ clubhouse. Veterans such as Mike Napoli and Elvis Andrus said all the right things. But there’s no dismissing the void he leaves.

“When you lose a [Yu] Darvish or an [Adrian] Beltre, a Hamels … there are certain waves that move across the clubhouse,” manager Jeff Banister said. “You need those type of players out on the field performing for you because they are elite performers.”

Banister was barely finished with that thought before segueing into another.

“There are times when those types of things can galvanize a club and put them back into kind of the spot they need to be, where they perform best, and that’s as a group,” he said.

The spat of issues for the Rangers, beginning with Beltre’s injured right calf, the seven blown saves, the rash of strikeouts (including 13 more Wednesday night), and culminating (hopefully for the Rangers) with the Hamels news, is reminiscent of recent seasons, including 2015 and the injury-plagued 2014.

Those two seasons had remarkably different outcomes. The ’15 club rebounded and won the AL West in Banister’s first season. The ’14 club nearly lost 100 games and saw the end of the Ron Washington era.

“You can’t control those things. It’s going to happen,” Napoli said. “We haven’t been playing our best baseball and it’s time for people in this clubhouse to lay it on the line. It’s time to be big boys and compete. We’re going to see what we’re made of.

“It’s time for people to step up and for us to start playing as a group. That’s what has been good around here for a while now, everyone picking each other, playing good team baseball. We haven’t been doing that.”

Without Hamels for the next two months, is the rotation, the most reliable aspect of the team during the first month, reliable enough now?

“There are reasons why they have people in big league camp and ready to be in the big leagues,” Napoli said. “It’s hard to be Cole Hamels, so when you get guys to come up here you just want them to be themselves and do their job.”

Banister is hoping the adversity brings his team closer together, just as it did in ’15, he reminded.

“The positive part of it, they’ve been through this before. They’ve been through it,” he said. “Nobody feels sorry for you. It’s the nature of our business, man.”

Daniels dismissed the notion his club is snakebit at the moment.

“That’s a loser’s mentality. This is baseball. These things happen,” he said. “You prepare for them by building depth. Obviously, you don’t snap your fingers and replace Cole Hamels but we’ve got quality people who can step in and do the job. Adversity is part of it. We have dealt with worse.”

Banister, in a weird way, seems to relish the backs-to-the-corner element.

“That’s why baseball season is so fascinating,” he said. “Are you going to turn to the snakebit mentality or are you going to toughen up and move through it? I choose to toughen up and move through it. Those who want to buy into the other side of it, I guess that’s your choice. Not me.”

This story was originally published May 3, 2017 at 10:16 PM with the headline "Body blows continue for Rangers with Cole Hamels out for two months."