{"id":612889,"date":"2026-03-08T06:05:16","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T06:05:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/612889\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T06:05:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T06:05:16","slug":"jacob-latz-sees-nathan-eovaldis-hunger-as-example-in-rangers-rotation-chase-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/612889\/","title":{"rendered":"Jacob Latz Sees Nathan Eovaldi’s Hunger as Example in Rangers Rotation Chase"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jacob Latz<\/a> is fighting for the fifth spot in the Texas Rangers rotation. It’s a reward for bailing the team out last year when it was dealing with injuries.<\/p>\n

Right now, the left-hander is fighting with Kumar Rocker for that last spot. He made his third start of spring training on Saturday against the San Francisco Giants.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

If you like our content, choose Sports Illustrated as a preferred source on Google.<\/a><\/p>\n

Latz is in a different mindset this year. He’s essentially made the team. If he doesn’t make the rotation, he’ll slide back into the bullpen. He can spend more time fine-tuning than trying to impress. Texas knows what he has. But he sees the perfect example in a Rangers<\/a> starter known for his relentless pursuit of getting better, even 14 years in his career.<\/p>\n

Jacob Latz’s Example<\/p>\n

For Jacob Latz, the perfect example is Nathan Eovaldi<\/a>. The 36-year-old is in his first 14 Major League season. He’s had two Tommy John surgeries. He has two World Series rings. He’s been an All-Star and was fourth in 2021 AL Cy Young voting. As he told 105.3 The Fan’s “K&C Masterpiece” earlier this week. Eovaldi is the pitcher he looks to for one reason.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

“You should never get comfortable in the game,” he said. “I mean of all these players here, the perfect example is Evo [Eovaldi]. He’s hungry even as he gets into Year 14.”<\/p>\n

Latz has grinded his way to this point. He was the Rangers fifth-round pick in 2017 out of Kent State, but it took him seven years to get a full-time MLB job, even though he made his MLB debut in 2021. He finally got a foothold with the Rangers in 2024 as a reliever, going 2-3 with a 3.71 ERA in 46 games. He struck out 40 and walked 27 in 43.2 innings. His reward was not making the opening day roster last season.<\/p>\n

Like Eovaldi, he remained hungry. He was back a couple of weeks into the season and he turned into a swingman, thanks to an injury to Tyler Mahle. He finished the season with a 2-0 record and a 2.84 ERA in 33 games, with eight starts. He had two holds and claimed a save in his only chance. He struck out 76 and walked 37 in 85.2 innings.<\/p>\n

At times, former manager Bruce Bochy said that Latz had the stuff and the temperament to be a full-time starter. It’s part of the reason why Latz has this chance in spring training. He proved he could handle it last season.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Texas has been open-minded about Latz this offseason. The Rangers have resisted herding him in a particular role, in part because Rocker hasn’t taken full hold of the fifth rotation spot. Until one does take hold of it, expect Latz to remain uncomfortable – in a good way.<\/p>\n

This article was originally published on www.si.com\/mlb\/rangers\/onsi as Jacob Latz Sees Nathan Eovaldi’s Hunger as Example in Rangers Rotation Chase<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jacob Latz is fighting for the fifth spot in the Texas Rangers rotation. It’s a reward for bailing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":612890,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2393],"tags":[5,19541,360,4,394,149,66,151,1567,69,3240,3825,91],"class_list":["post-612889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas-rangers","tag-baseball","tag-jacob-latz","tag-kumar-rocker","tag-mlb","tag-nathan-eovaldi","tag-rangers","tag-san-francisco-giants","tag-spring-training","tag-texas","tag-texas-rangers","tag-texasrangers","tag-the-rangers","tag-tyler-mahle"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116192052701708535","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=612889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612889\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/612890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=612889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=612889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=612889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}