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\n Carter Baumler thought he was being pulled from the game when his manager approached the mound Monday night. Instead, Skip Schumaker delivered the news that the 24-year-old pitcher had earned a spot on the Texas Rangers’ opening day roster.\n <\/p>\n
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ARLINGTON, Texas \u2014 What 24-year-old Carter Baumler thought would be the end of his final spring training appearance turned into the moment he learned he\u2019d made the Texas Rangers\u2019 opening day roster.<\/p>\n
After the rookie right-hander got two Kansas City Royals batters out in Monday night\u2019s fifth inning, Rangers manager Skip Schumaker walked to the mound with an unexpected message. Surrounded by catcher Danny Jansen and the entire infield, Schumaker delivered the news that Baumler would be joining the team\u2019s bullpen for the regular season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wasn\u2019t expecting it. I was like, why is he coming out here? And he got on the mound and told me I made the team,\u201d Baumler explained during a live television interview on the Rangers Sports Network. \u201cI mean, honestly, I thought I was like getting taken out of the game. \u2026 Obviously, whenever the manager comes out, you\u2019re usually done.\u201d<\/p>\n
Following congratulations from his teammates on the field \u2014 including Jansen tapping his mitt against Baumler\u2019s chest \u2014 the young pitcher regained his focus and finished the inning by striking out Isaac Collins with a 96.8 mph fastball.<\/p>\n
Throughout eight spring training appearances, Baumler posted impressive numbers, surrendering just one earned run while recording 10 strikeouts across 9 1\/3 innings.<\/p>\n
When Baumler returned to the dugout after completing the inning, he embraced Schumaker and received congratulations from his teammates.<\/p>\n
The journey to this moment hasn\u2019t been straightforward for Baumler. Baltimore drafted him in the fifth round from an Iowa high school in 2020, but he underwent Tommy John surgery shortly afterward. After spending 2022-25 in Baltimore\u2019s minor league system \u2014 never advancing beyond Double-A \u2014 the Orioles left him off their 40-man roster last fall. Pittsburgh selected him in December\u2019s Rule 5 draft before immediately trading him to Texas.<\/p>\n
\u201cA few years ago I never would have expected this,\u201d Baumler reflected. \u201cLooking back \u2026 I\u2019m glad I kept my head down and kept hammering away.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Carter Baumler thought he was being pulled from the game when his manager approached the mound Monday night.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":640154,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2393],"tags":[75638,75639,5,75632,75640,75634,75635,75633,75636,4,149,1567,69,3240,75637],"class_list":{"0":"post-640153","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas-rangers","8":"tag-102-3","9":"tag-102-3fm","10":"tag-baseball","11":"tag-fine-day","12":"tag-fine-day-102-3","13":"tag-fine-day-fm","14":"tag-fine-day-media","15":"tag-fine-day-radio","16":"tag-have-a-fine-day","17":"tag-mlb","18":"tag-rangers","19":"tag-texas","20":"tag-texas-rangers","21":"tag-texasrangers","22":"tag-weller-radio"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116282329302652992","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640153","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=640153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640153\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/640154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=640153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=640153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=640153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}