NEW YORK — They aren’t breaking up those Little Rascals just yet.
Adolis García is not yet ready to return from the injured list, Texas Rangers manager Bruce Bochy said Friday. García has been out since Sept. 2 with a strained right quadriceps muscle. He took live batting practice in Arlington on Tuesday and the Rangers want him to have at least one more session.
But it’s also harder to create that situation on the road. The Mets have an Alumni Game Saturday afternoon before the 3:10 pm start and the Rangers can’t access the field. They may have a pitcher with Class A Hub City throw to him in a batting cage because the Hub City team is scheduled to be in Coney Island this weekend to take on Brooklyn for the South Atlantic League championship.
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The Rangers may get García a live BP on the field before Sunday afternoon’s game and then make a determination. But, Bochy said, the Rangers are not “slow-playing” his return while Alejandro Osuna is hot.
“We’re not going to slow-play anything this time of year,” Bochy said. “He’s making improvement. He’s passed almost all of the tests.
“We’re hoping to get somebody here to pitch to him Saturday and Sunday, and possibly have him ready for the Houston series. That’s where we’re at now, but I wouldn’t rule out anything next few days. It’s a matter of how he feels. He might not be able to play defense right away, but by sometime during the Houston series, I think there’s a good chance he could do that.”
Despite averaging just 3.4 runs in the first eight games without García, the Rangers were 5-3.
The Rangers also continue to get positive news on the recovery of other starters. Corey Seager, recovering from an appendectomy, had a “really good day” on Friday, according to Bochy. And Marcus Semien, trying to get back from a broken bone in his foot, took ground balls for the first time on the field since his injury. He did not, however, do any running.
Bochy was much more optimistic about Seager’s return before the end of the season than Semien.
“He’s able to do some rotating, so we can speed up his rehab a little and get him, hopefully, taking some swings here pretty soon,” Bochy said of Seager. “We’ve seen Corey, where we thought he was three or four days away, and he takes a live BP and he’s playing that day. So I don’t rule anything out with him.”
Seager is not with the team in New York, so it wouldn’t be until sometime during the Houston series that he could take a live BP, at the earliest.
Bochy said Semien is still “a ways away.”
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