2025 Season in Review: Dustin Harris

With the 2025 Texas Rangers season having come to an end, we shall be, over the course of the offseason, taking a look at every player who appeared in a major league game for the Texas Rangers in 2025.

Today we are looking at outfielder Dustin Harris.

Dustin Harris had a weirdly memorable time in the majors in 2025 for a guy who only had 40 big league at bats.

It wasn’t even a given Harris would be around at all in 2025, at least with the Rangers. He had made his major league debut at the tail end of 2024, starting the final two games of the season, and getting his first major league hit and first major league home run in Game 162. His season ended on a high note, but after slashing .272/.358/.391 as a 24 year old in his second season at AAA (albeit first full season, as he split 2023 between AA and AAA), and with just one option remaining, Harris seemed like a potential 40 man roster casualty.

But he held onto his roster spot through the offseason and then spring training, and when Wyatt Langford went onto the injured list with an oblique strain in early April, Harris was called up to the active roster.

He got off to a hot start, going 6 for 15 with a homer and a pair of doubles, and there was enthusiasm for the newcomer. Maybe this was the bat we were looking for! Maybe this was someone who could provide some offense to the beleaguered Rangers lineup!

But no. Over the next roughly three weeks, Harris went 1 for 20, and ended up being returned to the minors. When the Rangers needed to clear up 40 man rosters spots at the trade deadline, Harris was a casualty, being designated for assignment.

One could reasonably assume that was the end of Harris’s time with the Rangers. He ended up clearing waivers and was outrighted, but it seemed far-fetched to believe he might return to the big leagues again.

There was, however, that rash of injuries late in the summer, that period when the majority of the Rangers regulars were sidelined. Desperate for bodies, Harris was brought back up in September.

On September 5, in a game against the Houston Astros, Harris pinch ran for Jake Burger — who was the Zombie Runner — in the bottom of the 10th with the game tied. Texas didn’t score, and Harris stayed in the game. In the bottom of the 12th, after a leadoff walk by Wyatt Langford, he came to the plate against Lance McCullers, Jr. It was his first major league plate appearance in almost four months.

Harris grounded a 2-2 pitch to right field for a double. Zombie Runner Cody Freeman scored the winning run. There was much celebration. Texas moved to a half game back in the Wild Card race, and four games back of Houston in the A.L. West.

Harris was rewarded with a start the next day, against Hunter Brown. The Rangers lost, 11-0. Harris didn’t appear in another game until a week later, when he pinch ran for Freeman in the ninth against the Mets, and ended up scoring the winning run when Wyatt Langford singled off of Edwin Diaz.

It was a big win, putting the Rangers two games back of the A.L. West, and two games back of WC2 and WC3, with a 79-70 record.

That ended up being as close as the Rangers were to get the rest of the way, though. They lost the next day to the Mets, were swept by the Astros and the Marlins, and lost to Minnesota at home, an eight game losing streak that ended their hopes of the postseason and wrecked their chances of a winning season.

It was also Harris’s last game with the Rangers. He was optioned afterwards to clear a spot on the active roster for Adolis Garcia. He ended up being waived, became a free agent, and just yesterday it was reported he had signed a minor league deal with the Chicago White Sox.

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