Rangers ace Jacob deGrom addresses latest injury concern

Texas Rangers ace Jacob deGrom has tried to ease worries about his latest injury concern. 

"Obviously what I've been through the last couple of years, I've dealt with some things, and this is very minor," deGrom told reporters Thursday, per the Associated Press (h/t ESPN). "Left side was a little tight, I mentioned that to them. ... They just said, let's take a couple of days off and knock this all the way out and then resume."

Eyebrows were raised when Rangers general manager Chris Young confirmed Wednesday that deGrom was being held back from throwing for a day or two after he felt what Kennedi Landry of the MLB website described as "a little tightness" in his left side during a bullpen session. The two-time National League Cy Young Award winner left the New York Mets for the Rangers in free agency via a five-year contract reportedly worth $185 million that carries a conditional sixth-year option which could increase the deal's value to $222 million.

A healthy deGrom may be the best pitcher in MLB, but fans haven't seen much of that version of the 34-year-old over the past couple of campaigns. He missed the second half of the 2021 season because of lingering elbow problems and was then sidelined last year from the final days of spring training through all of July due to a stress reaction in the scapula of his pitching shoulder.

Rangers manager Bruce Bochy doesn't seem to be losing sleep over deGrom's health ahead of this weekend. 

"I can't tell you how many times in my 25 years of managing when we've done this to a pitcher, even a position player, just to give them another day or two," Bochy said. "That was our call. ... We took it away from him." 

Bochy added that deGrom will be re-evaluated on Friday, and the righty insisted he just doesn't want to "do anything dumb now" that might jeopardize his availability for the start of the upcoming season. That's all well and good, but skeptics and pockets of Mets fans can't be blamed for believing they've seen this movie before and know how it ends. 

In total, deGrom recorded just 26 starts over the past two regular seasons.