Rangers lose A.J. Griffin to injury, game to Jays

Texas Rangers starting pitcher A.J. Griffin left Friday’s opener against the Toronto Blue Jays in the second inning with a strained left intercostal muscle and is headed to the disabled list.

Right-handed veteran Dillon Gee was called up from Triple A Round Rock and will join the team Saturday. Manager Jeff Banister said Gee will work out of the bullpen.

The Rangers’ 7-6 loss to the Blue Jays at Rogers Centre is less of a concern in the long run than the loss of Griffin, although Tyson Ross’ imminent arrival now appears to have a clean opening in the rotation with the Griffin development.

Griffin had just surrendered a grand slam to Devon Travis, which put the Blue Jays up 4-1 with no outs in the second inning. Griffin struck out the next batter Ezequiel Carrera but immediately reached for his left upper torso on the final pitch of the at-bat.

Rangers manager Jeff Banister and trainers met him on the mound and Banister didn’t need too much time before calling on Austin Bibens-Dirkx from the bullpen.

“It felt like a cramp early on,” said Griffin, who lost his second consecutive start. “Sometimes those come and you can pitch through it but it just kept tightening more and more.”

Griffin said it’s the first time he’s had the injury.

“It was uncomfortable. I couldn’t get to my extensions on the glove side as well as I wanted to because I couldn’t pull through as much as I wanted to,” he said.

Bibens-Dirkx pitched valiantly in emergency relief, allowing three runs on four hits, including two solo homers, over four innings. He left with one out and two on in the sixth. Bibens-Dirkx has thrown 178 pitches, including 84 on Friday night, over the past week. The third run charged to Bibens-Dirkx was scored on a wild pitch by Jeremy Jeffress, who took over with two on and one out in the sixth. Jeffress walked two and allowed two hits but pitched  2 1/3 scoreless innings of relief.

“I pride myself on being able to throw a lot of pitches and recover quickly,” said Bibens-Dirkx, who said he was in a similar situation in April when he was forced to replace starter Allen Webster early in a game for Round Rock. “I started getting my legs loose and mentally starting to prepare a little bit, but it’s never fun getting thrown out there like that.

Griffin’s departure after  1 1/3 innings is the shortest stint by a Rangers’ starter this season. The last time a Rangers’ starter left that early it was Colby Lewis on Sept. 25, 2016 at Oakland. He also left at 1 1/3.

Bibens-Dirkx’s ability to go four innings was important because the Rangers’ bullpen isn’t exactly fresh at the moment. Banister even expressed a desire to put a string of quality starts together to give the relievers a reprieve.

“We kind of need to get back to the run of quality starts,” he said before pointing out that the bullpen has pitched 24 of the past 58 innings. “We’ve had a couple of outings where a couple of relievers didn’t record an out.”

Rougned Odor, who is still booed lustily by Blue Jays fans, ripped a three-run homer in the ninth to pull the Rangers within a run, but Mike Napoli, who was 2 for 4 with a walk, RBI and two runs scored, struck out to end the game.

This story was originally published May 26, 2017 at 10:38 PM with the headline "Rangers lose A.J. Griffin to injury, game to Jays."