SURPRISE, Ariz. — If the worst thing Texas Rangers right-handed pitcher Nathan Eovaldi can say about his Cactus League debut is that his signature pitch is a bit on the fritz, then, well, he and the organization will take that.
Eovaldi, the staff’s leader who missed two months last season with mutiple injuries and underwent an offseason operation to address a third, allowed three runs in two innings of work vs. the Kansas City Royals in a 7-3 loss Friday at Surprise Stadium.
The exact numbers pale in significance to how he felt when they were recorded.
“Nothing is affecting me,” Eovaldi said. “I feel really good. Body-wise, stuff in the weight room, everything feels really good. I’m essentially back to where I was before.”
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Eovaldi pitched like a Cy Young award candidate before he missed the last month-plus of the regular season with a rotator cuff strain. His 1.73 ERA was the lowest in franchise history through 22 starts and he allowed one or fewer runs in 15 of them. He missed a month in the first half of the season with elbow inflammation, another five weeks because of the rotator cuff strain and underwent a sports hernia procedure one week into the offseason.
“He’s healthy and ready to go,” Rangers manager Skip Schumaker said. “He’s one that you definitely don’t need to push. He’s wired differently. Ultimate teammate, ultimate competitor, and getting him through a full season is what we’re trying to get to.”
The 36-year-old pitched a perfect first inning, threw a dozen pitches and got Royals first baseman Vinnie Pasquantino to chase a low splitter for the third out.
He leaned on his splitter in the second and was punished for it. Royals catcher Salvador Perez hit a splitter in the zone 441 feet to left-center field for a home run that led off the inning, and three batters later, outfielder Michael Massey pulled a splitter to right field for a two-run shot that gave Kansas City a three-run lead. Massey’s ball was aided by the wind, and may or may not have bounced off of the glove of right fielder Alejandro Osuna and over the wall, though a lack of video evidence or a clear point of view from Schumaker made that difficult to confirm.
Eovaldi allowed only two home runs with his splitter in 603 attempts last season.
“I feel like that pitch has been a little inconsistent right now,” Eovaldi said. “But I’ve got a lot of time to get that pitch right.”
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