The SportsDay Rangers podcast came back with a bang in 2026, hosting Rangers’ ace Nathan Eovaldi as its first guest in the new year.
He spoke to our Rangers insider Evan Grant and his co-host John Blake for over 10 minutes on a range of topics from his recovery from surgery to how the team’s chemistry compares to the 2023 World Series-winning group and more.
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Here are some of the highlights of his conversation:
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On new pitching coach Jordan Tiegs:
Eovaldi: “With Tiegs, I feel like he kind of specializes in all of it, I don’t know if there’s one particular thing that he’s extremely good at. I know I talked to him a lot when it came to mechanics. I was constantly searching, trying to find what really made me feel good, and being able to repeat those mechanics. And when it comes to all the Statcast numbers, things like that, he knows how to read those and communicate them well to the guys.
So I think when it comes to mechanics, Tiegs is really good, but also the pitch shape. There’s been times where he’s helped me out with certain pitches and pitch shapes, trying to make them easier for me to be able to repeat. And same with a lot of other guys. You’ve seen a lot of the success that Leiter’s had, and Rocker, they’ve both worked with Tiegs a lot coming up. And I think now that we’ve got a lot of lot more younger arms coming up through the system. You got Cole Winn and Jacob Latz both making a huge impact for us last year, and then we’re going to need that same kind of success out of them this year. I think he’s going to be a big part of that.”
On new manager Skip Schumaker:
Eovaldi: “I felt like he kind of stayed in the shadows when [Bruce] Boch[y] was here. You’d see him around in the club or in the kitchen, but I didn’t feel like he was overstepping any boundaries or anything like that. He’d be around easy to talk to, very approachable. But I’m excited to be able to be around him more and to learn from him. The guys that have had him in the past or have been teammates with him, have spoken extremely highly of him, and just saying he’s got a unique way of bringing out the best in all the guys. And I think that’s one of the big things that we need, being so young now with a lot of the guys, and needing them to be able to step up and help the team to have that good success. You know, we need somebody like Skip that’s going to be able to come out and bring the best out of those guys, and encourage them and and challenge them in the right ways, for them to go out there and help us out, help us win these big ball games.”
On young pitchers like Jack Leiter and Kumar Rocker:
Eovaldi: “You want to see all those young guys have success, and try to fast track them through the things that you’ve already experienced. You’ve had your ups and downs throughout your career, and just making sure that when they do struggle, it’s not as long, for as long of a period as some guys might have. I feel like a lot of the times too. They’re kind of easy to, you know, ask me questions about the splitter. Since my splitter so good, they’ll ask me questions how I hold it, what, you know, what I’m thinking about when I’m throwing it. And then it just kind of opens the door for everything. It just it comes that time when we’re spending time with each other in spring training, watching bullpens. I enjoy watching bullpens. I enjoy trying to learn from them, too. … We have all that free time with each other and just trying to figure out how they’re thinking.
Then I feel like a lot of the times with the young guys coming up, they’re so dependent on the Trackman and Rapsodo and things like that, and trying to get their minds back onto attacking the hitters. I’ve seen a lot of guys, they’ll throw a bad pitch and ask what the numbers are on that pitch shape. It’s like, you should never want to throw that pitch again because you missed off the plate so bad. You know what I mean? It’s like, I try to bottle up the good feelings that I’ve had when I’m out there on the mound. The good pitches let them know, like, ‘Hey, that’s when it felt really good. Can we mark that one on the Trackman?’ That way I can go back and look at that pitch shape. But again, I think it’s just talking in the dugout watching the game. They’re all open to my suggestions. And, you know, there’s not, I feel like there’s not just one way. It’s not just my way of pitching, you know, deGrom and I are both very different pitchers, and we have different ways of kind of going out there and attacking, I feel like a lot of the times I’m more, you know, technical with a lot of the things, and deGrom kind of goes out there and just throws to the target, you know. So he’s got a simple way of doing things. And I think I might have a complicating way of doing things sometimes.”
On his June-July 2025 hot streak:
Eovaldi: “Honestly, I didn’t feel very good when I was out there. I felt like my outings, I just ended up making big pitches when I needed to. There was, obviously, there was some of those games like where everything was working and I was locked in from the first inning on, but I felt like a lot of the times last year, we would score first, and I would love then to be right back in the game. And then I kind of get frustrated with myself when I’m out there, and really got to bear down and try to make those pitches go deep into the ball games. But again, I kind of go back to the scouting reports.
I feel like, as a pitcher, I should never back myself into a corner where I feel like I have to locate this pitch perfectly. You know, the hitters are always hunting a fastball and trying to do damage. Now, on pretty much every every swing they take, they’re trying to do big damage. So as long as I have a good pitch mix, and I’m out there pitching instead of just throwing, I feel like I feel like I can get myself out of some of those big jams. And I think that was a lot to my success last year, was being able to trust my secondary pitches and a lot of those counts and, you know, get the big double play ball when I needed it.”
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