TORONTO — There’s a “Peaky Blinders” scene at the end of the show’s season two finale in which the protagonist recognizes his luck’s run dry, and in a remote field, laments that he “nearly got everything.”
We’ve omitted the expletive shared in that sentiment, but with shared sentiments in mind, the comprehensive vibe has company.
The Rangers — with an impressive series win already secured, with a playoff spot in their grasp and with their highest-paid hitter healthy again — believed that they finally nearly got everything they needed to stack legitimate momentum into the summer months.
It hit a meaningful snag when left fielder Wyatt Langford was placed on the 10-day injured list with a left hamstring strain prior to Sunday’s game against the Toronto Blue Jays at the Rogers Centre, just as the Rangers seemed able to turn a corner in an otherwise inconsistent season. The Rangers activated outfielder Evan Carter, who’d missed two weeks with an oblique strain, in a corresponding move.
The way that he strained his hamstring is proof. He used his elite speed to stretch a single into a double in the fourth inning of Friday’s win for his third hit of the game, but recognized that his leg muscle “got tight” after the play. He tried to work it out that night, and again the next morning, but was ultimately scratched from Saturday’s game less than an hour before first pitch.
“It sucks a lot,” Langford said. “Especially because the team is playing well and winning games in a pretty important part of the season coming up to the All-Star break and trade deadline and all that stuff. I wish I could be out there.”
This is Langford’s sixth soft tissue-related trip to the injured list and second due to a hamstring strain in three-plus big league seasons. He missed six weeks with a right forearm strain earlier this season and suffered a quad strain before that that forced him to miss a handful of games. The 24-year-old has played in 308 of 408 possible games — just a shade over 75% — since he debuted.
“He’s done everything to make sure that he stays on the field,” Rangers manager Skip Schumaker said. “That’s what’s so frustrating is, he did it on an effort play, it wasn’t like he was just running down the line on a ground ball to short. He plays hard, he plays the right way, it’s what you want from a player.”
The Rangers have played just 28 of their 84 games this season with both Langford and shortstop Corey Seager in the lineup. Seager missed a month-plus worth of games with lower back inflammation and a concussion, returned from the latter prior to Thursday’s series opener and played just once with Langford before his hamstring game. The club was prepared to activate Carter regardless of Langford’s status before Sunday’s game, which would’ve allowed Carter to play center field, Langford to play left field and for the Rangers to deploy what they believe is their best defensive alignment.
That dream lasted less than a day.
“It’s crazy, right?” Schumaker said. “When Corey comes off, our other superstar goes on, and it’s felt that way the majority of the year. It’s part of it, and it feels like every team is going through something like that, but we’ll figure it out.”