Junis lands on IL with adductor strain

Junis will return to his setup role in front of Jacob Latz after 15 days off for an adductor strain.

Junis returns to fortify Texas’ high-leverage mix following a two-week stint on the injured list with a hip impingement. The 33-year-old has served as an invaluable bridge to breakout closer Jacob Latz this season with a sparkling 2.80 ERA, 1.02 WHIP and 27/6 K/BB ratio across 35 1/3 innings in his Rangers debut.

Junis received an injection and there’s hope it’ll be a minimum stint on the injured list, according to MLB.com’s Kennedi Landry. He’s settled nicely into a setup role behind stopper Jacob Latz for the Rangers this season, which makes his absence a tougher one to swallow than most. The 33-year-old journeyman has posted a strong 2.80 ERA, 1.02 WHIP and 27/6 K/BB ratio across 35 1/3 innings during his Texas debut. He’s also notched five saves during that span.

Jacob Latz had the day off after pitching Friday and Saturday. Working with a one-run lead, Junis got into trouble right away, giving up singles to pinch-hitter Fernando Tatis Jr. and Xander Bogaerts to start the ninth, but he then retired Ty France, Sung-Mun Song and Rodolfo Durán to end the inning. Junis has a 1.97 ERA through 32 innings this season.

Jacob Latz had pitched two days in a row, so it was suspected that Junis would lose tonight. The 33-year-old journeyman has a 1.69 ERA in 26 2/3 innings of relief work for the Rangers.

Not good. Jakob Junis will take the ball to open a bullpen game on Monday night in his place. Eovaldi was in line for a two-start week against Arizona and Houston after spinning an eight-inning masterpiece against the Yankees his last time out. The 36-year-old veteran will presumably undergo imaging to determine the severity of the issue and whether he’ll require a trip to the injured list. It’s obviously an alarming development for the Rangers, and fantasy managers as well. There should be a definitive update on his status at some point shortly.

Latz has seemed like a candidate for saves in the Texas bullpen for weeks now, but this is his first save of the year. He joins Jakob Junis (three), Tyler Alexander (two) and Cole Winn (one) in having earned saves for the Rangers. Junis set him up with a scoreless eighth tonight, while Winn wound up with the win for pitching a scoreless sixth. It’s difficult to recommend any one Texas reliever right now, but Latz is probably the best bet of the bunch from an ERA standpoint.

It doesn’t sound like there are any plans to put Garcia on the injured list, but that could change if he’s not ready to pitch in a couple days. The 29-year-old has been unavailable since last Friday. Jakob Junis appears to be the favorite to continue closing games for the Rangers.

This was a 3-0 game after eighth, but the Rangers scored twice in the ninth to take away the save situation. It didn’t appear that Jakob Junis ever warmed up, so this probably would have been a save chance for Latz if the Rangers hadn’t scored. Cole Winn pitched a hitless eighth for a hold.

The Rangers’ flavor of the week at closer was called upon to protect a two-run lead with two men on and one out in the seventh inning. He did his job, retiring the next two hitters in order to escape the jam. He returned for the eighth though and ended up loading the bases on an infield single, double and an intentional walk with two outs before handing the ball off to Jacob Latz. He then allowed a bases-clearing double that charged three runs to Junis’ ledger. Even with this rough outing, Junis still sports a strong 2.89 ERA and 0.75 WHIP over 9 1/3 innings while converting each of his first three save chances.