The double winner of the Cy Young Award, Jacob Degrom, will start for the last time in the 2025 season when the Rangers Texas face the Minnesota Twins on Wednesday evening in Arlington, Texas.
The second competition in the three-game series will be a battle of right-handers while Degrom (12-8, 3.01 ERA) opposes Taj Bradley (6-8, 5.20) of the twins.
The Minnesota (68-89) recorded a 4-1 victory on Tuesday behind seven solid rounds on the mound of Zebby Matthews and Koby Clemens with two strokes and a point.
Tuesday’s defeat was the summit of the eighth consecutive for the Rangers (79-78) and mathematically eliminated them from post-season affirmations. Texas was in the two games of the head of the Al West and two games in the race for the last point of the league on September 14 before its current fainting.
The start of Wednesday will be the 30th of the campaign for Degrom in its first full season after elbow surgery. It has not started as many games in one year since 2019, and the 16/3 rounds of degrom launched in 2025 are already the most in 2019 and more than its last three combined seasons.
He leads the rangers in the victories, the sleeves launched and the withdrawals to the stick (177). If Texas was still in the running for the playoffs, it is likely that Degrom would have started Tuesday’s match, then raised in the season final on Sunday in Cleveland.
All of this changed when the Rangers fell into consideration for the last point of AL joker.
“We could have launched it twice,” said Texas manager Bruce Bochy. “Unfortunately, with what happened, we deviated from this plan.”
Degrom lost his only career departure against the Twins, granting six points in eight strokes and a walk in just four rounds (producing an MPM of 13.50) in the 2019 season when he launched for the New York dishes.
The Rangers also announced before Tuesday’s match that the All-Star Corey Seaager and the second second veteran Marcus Semien goal player would not return to the team for his last five games. Bochy said it was “not worth the risk” of continuing the two injury players with only five games to play.
Bradley is still looking for his first victory since he was obtained in Tampa Bay on the deadline for trade. He heads for the mound in the heels of a 10-5 setback in the Yankees last Wednesday during which he sold seven points in eight strokes and three balls in four rounds.
“I was late in the counts after the first time by order and I did not favor the first round strike,” said Bradley. “I was trying to do too much. All these locations started out of the area, and some of my fast balls escaped me.”
Bradley granted four or more points in four of his last six departures, his time going from 4.35 to 5.20. He has a 0-2 file and an MPM of 5.03 out of 19 2/3 rounds in four career starts against Texas, including a decision without a decision on the road on April 5 when he was with Tampa Bay.
– field level media
