ARLINGTON — It appears likely that Jon Gray’s season is done, too. And maybe his career.
The Rangers’ free-agent-to-be pitcher acknowledged Friday that doctors have indicated he has arterial thoracic outlet syndrome in his right arm. The condition, in which blood flow to the arm is restricted by the compression of an artery, usually requires a surgical fix in which a rib is removed.
Gray, who went on the IL on Sunday with what was described at the time as “nerve irritation,” will see a vascular specialist on Monday to get further evaluation. He sounded resigned to not pitching again this season after missing the first four months with a broken arm.
“I don’t have any idea about the future,” Gray said Friday. “I guess there is always hope. But it’s hard to have hope with everything that’s happened. It’s just become a really frustrating pattern.”
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It could also lead to Gray contemplating retirement. Gray, who turns 34 in November, is in the final year of a four-year deal with the Rangers and would be a free agent this fall. The usual recovery time for TOS surgery is nine to 12 months, meaning he’d almost certainly miss most, if not all, of the 2026 season.
By the time he’d be recovered, he would be 36, would have very few innings over the previous two seasons and would be entering free agency as baseball tries to work its way through what is expected to be an acrimonious labor negotiation. It would be a challenging environment in which to try to make a comeback.
Gray has been on the IL nine times in his four seasons with the Rangers and only pitched more than 130 innings once. He did reach 10 years of major league service time this season, so he is fully vested in the MLBPA pension plan.
Asked if he intended to try to pitch beyond this year, Gray responded mostly with a shrug but did allude to how he also wanted to be able to put the litany of past injuries behind him and maybe “go out with a good feeling”
Gray pitched 14 innings this season after returning from the fractured forearm, compiling a 7.71 ERA.
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