It’s always helpful for young players to learn from veterans and the Rangers have one of the best veteran teammates in baseball in Nathan Eovaldi.
Eovaldi is a strong presence and has been instrumental as a mentor for Texas’ young arms like Jack Leiter and Kumar Rocker, and it showed for Leiter in 2025 when he took a huge leap and solidified himself in the Rangers’ rotation. Eovaldi joined “The Sweet Spot” on Sportsradio 96.7 FM/1310 The Ticket (KTCK-AM) and discussed his mentoring of the young pitchers, what to expect from the new coaching staff and more.
Below are highlights from the interview, edited lightly for clarity.
With as good as the pitching was last season, you having a sub-2.00 ERA at the All-Star break and not making the All-Star team and other struggles last year, did you feel a lot of frustrations?
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Nathan Eovaldi: I mean, it’s definitely the ups and downs. I think the biggest thing is moreso us only winning half the games. It’s one of those tough things to kind of wrap your mind around. To me, pitching wins championships, you know? And I felt like we had that last year, and we just weren’t able to piece it together. I know towards the end of the season, there were some stats, saying that we would score first the most in the big leagues. I think that was like at 130, 140 games. If we score one run, especially when it comes down to the postseason, we need to make sure that we win those games. But it’s a collective effort and everything, so it’s just tough. I was feeling really good there. I definitely wanted to get that ERA title, try to bring that one home for us. And unfortunately, the health and everything caught up to me, and I wasn’t able to stay out there on the field.
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You were in the Cy Young mix, was that something that was on your mind through the season?
Eovaldi: It’s tough, because I missed like a month right there, towards the beginning of the season or midway through. I think that’s kind of what caused me not to make the All-Star team. I don’t really know all the logistics and everything, how it goes into play, but definitely frustrating not making the All-Star team, and then there towards the end of the season, just getting hurt. But I feel like a lot of the times, as long as I stay healthy, I’m going to be able to accomplish some good things. And that’s speaking for our entire rotation, we got a lot of really good arms again coming back this year, who I think we can repeat what we did last year. Obviously, losing Mike [Maddux] is going to be big for us, but we’ve also got [new pitching coach Jordan Tiegs] coming in, who I thought did an outstanding job last year in the bullpen. I felt like his hands were tied in a way, and he’s going to be able to help us out even more being in that role that he’s in now.
As a pitching coach, where does Jordan Tiegs shine?
Eovaldi: I think just today, like where the game is now, like with all the TrackMan, and all the information, all the spin rates and pitch shapes, things like that. He’s really good mechanically. He’s really good understanding those things, but he can also put together a really good scouting report as well. So spring training is one of those things where you don’t have a ton of information because everybody’s so busy, and you got a lot of the minor league guys who are playing, and everybody also is building up. So I think these last two weeks are going to be big for us to kind of hit the ground running when the season starts. But I enjoy working with Tiegs, same with [assistant pitching coach Dave Bush] and then [bullpen coach Colby Suggs] has been great as well. So there’s been some turnover, there’s been some change and stuff, but for the most part, I’m enjoying everything so far in camp.
What are your initial thoughts and first impressions of Skip Schumaker as manager?
Eovaldi: I mean, definitely a player’s manager. He brings a lot of energy, you know what I mean? I think that’s what we need right now with our organization and stuff. We got a lot of young guys, and they can’t get too comfortable, he’s definitely keeping them on the edge of their seats, on their toes, and again it’s the confidence, it’s everything kind of packed into one. I’ve been enjoying it, but it’s spring training, right? So it’s a lot of moving parts. You don’t get to see each other as much as you would during the regular season. And then when the season starts, I’m excited for it.
You’re always so locked into the team’s bullpens and helping other pitchers. Is there anyone at camp that we’re not thinking of that could take the next step?
Eovaldi: I don’t know. I’m trying to think of the guys and everybody that we still have in camp and stuff, because we’ve been trimming it down as the season starts to get closer. But I mean we got a lot of guys, we got a lot of guys who I’m excited to see. [Jacob] Latz has been throwing the ball really well. The season he had for us last year, it’s not easy to bounce around from being the long man to the short to filling in starts and going deep into games, and he did an outstanding job of that last year. And I’m excited to see what his role is. There’s certain guys who they want to be in the bullpen, and there’s certain guys want to be in the rotation, and he’s a guy who wants to be in the rotation, and he’s been doing so well for us now. But again, it’s like he’s so versatile with being able to come out in that role, in the bullpen, and be a long man, and be able to get those shutdown innings, which is big for us. Jack [Leiter] has been good. Like last year, I always talked to him and try to explain to him, I feel he’s a younger version of me back in my day, right? I kind of get to see the struggles that he’s having. I did the same thing. He’s obviously got an outstanding fastball, and sometimes he, I feel, overuses it, because his off- speed’s just as good. And if we can use the off-speed a little bit more, it’s going to set up the fastball, and he’s going to get away with a lot more mistakes.
Leiter mixed in the kick-change last year. Kumar Rocker is working on his changeup right now. As a younger pitcher, how do you get over the hump of trusting the pitch in live action?
Eovaldi: The success, right? You have to trust it enough to go out there and throw it, execute it, and then you get some good results on it. All of the times when you do it, you’re not going to have as much confidence when you throw it. So when you do go out there and throw it, it may not be the best, but then you get the good results, and then you’re like, this is a pretty good pitch. And again, that’s where the TrackMan comes into play. You can see the pitch shapes. You can see the recognition of it, and his kick-change is similar to my splitter. So it’s a kick-change, I throw a splitter, but we’re both throwing essentially the same pitch. He sees the success that I have with my splitter, and again, the confidence and everything starts to build. And I think that was one of the big things last year, was him getting into those 2-0 counts, 2-1 counts, being able to rely on the change-up, the at-bat’s over with, as opposed to I gotta rely on my fastball. I throw three or four more in that at-bat, the at-bat’s a seven, eight pitch at-bat. It’s just harder for that next time around.
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