HOUSTON — The regular season ends in less than a week-and-a-half. The Texas Rangers have nine games left to play. Their superstar shortstop has still not picked up a bat since his unexpected appendectomy at the tail end of last month.
The runway for Corey Seager to return grows slimmer by the day. Is he confident that he will play another game before the curtains drop?
“I would like to,” Seager said. “Yes.”
Seager has lightly jogged, thrown and rotated in the weight room with a resistance band in the last three days. He hasn’t yet fielded ground balls and hopes to pick up a bat Thursday for the first time since he was placed on the injured list Aug. 29. On Wednesday, before a game against the Houston Astros at Daikin Park, he worked out on the field pregame with trainers.
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The 31-year-old said each of his next steps will be determined by how his body responds to the prior day’s workout.
“You’d like to do it as fast as you can,” Seager said, “But without having done anything, you don’t really know yet. The first step was rotating in there and that went good. We get to progress now.”
Seager slashed .271/.373/.487 with 21 home runs in 102 games before his injury. His 6.0 WAR, according to Baseball Reference, ranks seventh among all position players in baseball despite his missed time.
“We’re hopeful he’ll be back,” Rangers manager Bruce Bochy said. “We’re pretty sure he’ll be back.”
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