Rangers beat A’s, but lose Choo to broken arm

The Texas Rangers’ scoring drought ended Monday night.

So did, in all likelihood, Shin-Soo Choo’s season.

The right fielder, the team’s leadoff hitter and their best player in the second half last season, was diagnosed with a broken left forearm after he was struck by a pitch in the fifth inning of a 5-2 victory against the Oakland A’s.

The hit-by-pitch served as the catalyst for the Rangers’ four-run inning, with each run coming on a grand slam by Adrian Beltre three batters later.

The Rangers ended their scoreless streak at 24 innings in the fourth on an Elvis Andrus RBI single, but their lineup took a significant hit when former Rangers pitcher Ross Detwiler plunked Choo.

“We need Choo,” Beltre said. “It’s just tough luck for Choo. He’s worked so hard. We all feel sorry for him. We know he’s a great guy. He’s a great addition to our lineup. We’re going to miss him at the top of the lineup, but hopefully he can come back soon.”

Choo will be placed on the disabled list for the fourth time this season, with a calf strain and a hamstring injury sidelining him twice early in the season and a lower back strain knocking him out late last month.

The injury was said to be similar to the fracture Robinson Chirinos suffered in April when he was hit by a Garrett Richards pitch at Angel Stadium. Chirinos underwent surgery and missed two months.

Choo will be evaluated Tuesday morning by Dr. Keith Meister, who will determine if surgery is a necessity.

“It’s obviously very challenging news,” manager Jeff Banister said. “When he got it, we obviously knew that something was wrong.”

The Rangers announced that outfielder Ryan Rua will replace Choo on the active roster. Rua, who homered for Triple A Round Rock before being removed early from a game at Salt Lake City, was optioned Wednesday but can return before the end of the mandated 10-day stay in the case of a DL move.

Jurickson Profar and Delino DeShields could share duties atop the lineup. Rougned Odor has also batted leadoff this season.

“Obviously, it changes the structure of our lineup somewhat,” Banister said. “We’ll need to find someone who can solidify that leadoff spot for us.”

Choo exited quickly after Detwiler’s 0-2 two-seam fastball rode inside and hit Choo on his throwing arm. He grimaced in pain, holding the arm throughout a delay, then walked off the field.

Nomar Mazara replaced Choo and reached third on consecutive singles by Ian Desmond and Carlos Beltran. Beltre followed with his 10th career grand slam and first since April 2, 2011, his second game with the Rangers.

“The whole game today we were trying to find a way to get back to our winning ways of creating situations to score runs,” Beltre said. “Today we came in on a mission to create situations but make sure we got the job done.”

The Rangers were coming off consecutive shutouts in which they had a combined seven hits, and their scoreless drought stretched to the fifth inning of Friday’s 8-5 victory over Detroit.

They collected seven hits in five innings against Detwiler, who opened last season in the Rangers’ starting rotation before faltering badly, and 10 overall. Desmond, Beltran and Odor had two hits apiece.

Once the Rangers saw Detwiler’s secondary pitches the first time through the lineup, they seemed to find more success.

“Once they saw him twice, they kind of locked in and really made him pitch,” Banister said. “More than anything else it was our ability to move the line along and the pass-the-baton mentality until we had him in a spot, and we got the big man to the plate and he did the rest.”

Martin Perez (8-8) rallied from two sluggish innings to start the game to give the Rangers seven strong innings in his 11th quality start in 11 home outings this season.

After throwing 27 pitches in the first inning, the left-hander needed only 64 more over his final six. In the process, he induced two double-play grounders to set a single-season club record with 33.

“We did some work inside early on, and they were ready for it,” catcher Jonathan Lucroy said. “We kind of went back away again. He did good mixing his pitches. He started using his breaking ball there and got some strikes early in the count, threw his changeup behind in the count and got some swings, and really limited the hard contact.”

Ordinarily, Beltre and Perez would be the two big stories to emerge from a game like Monday’s. The Choo injury, though, was the big story and will be a story going forward.

“He such a key part of this ballclub and this organization, and you feel terrible for him personally,” Banister said. “It’s a gut punch, but we’ve got to continue to play.”

This story was originally published August 15, 2016 at 10:58 PM with the headline "Rangers beat A’s, but lose Choo to broken arm."