Texas Rangers plan to bring Calhoun off IL, but they aren’t freeing Willie entirely

Coming home from Florida must have felt pretty dang good Thursday night for the Texas Rangers, even though they didn’t land until around 2 a.m.

They had just taken 3 of 4 games from the defending American League champs, the Tampa Bay Rays, and were returning to Globe Life Field to face a Baltimore Orioles team that, like the Rangers, is rebuilding.

The Orioles lost both ends of a doubleheader Thursday.

Advantage, Rangers?

Not exactly.

Here’s some Rangers Reaction from a 5-2 loss to the Orioles.

Calhoun’s coming

Willie Calhoun was en route from Round Rock to Arlington on Friday evening, presumably to be reinstated Saturday from the 10-day injured list.

The left fielder strained his groin during spring training and has been in comeback mode since, most recently at the alternate camp site.

Once he’s back, he will have work to do.

Rangers manager Chris Woodward said that Calhoun is not guaranteed everyday playing time. The Rangers like David Dahl and Adolis Garcia, who can both play left field. Woodward likes to use the designated hitter spot to give players days off their feet.

Calhoun will have to earn whatever he can get.

“I would say probably we’re going to activate him,” Woodward said of Calhoun. “As far as the playing time goes, I don’t think it’s every single day. We have other guys who have earned the right and are playing well. He’s going to have to earn it.

“Willie’s a guy I believe fully believe in, especially on the offensive side. He can be an elite hitter.”

Infielder Brock Holt (hamstring) is also eligible to come off the IL, so the Rangers’ roster is going to change yet again. They activated left-hander Joely Rodriguez on Friday and optioned right-hander Josh Sborz to give them 14 pitchers and 12 position players.

The Rangers are likely to return to 13 and 13 on Saturday, so a position player and a pitcher will have to be sent down. Anderson Tejeda seems like an automatic choice after struggling badly while filling in for Holt, but the other one will be a tougher call.

Lefty Kolby Allard is a candidate even though he tossed three perfect innings of relief Saturday.

If the Rangers stick with 14 pitchers, outfielders Leody Taveras and Eli White become candidates to be taken off the roster. Neither has been particularly impressive, and they have looked overmatched at times offensively.

The Rangers love them defensively, especially Taveras. Woodward believes Taveras should be an annual contender for a Gold Glove, even though he has had some hiccups out there so far this season.

Taveras’ struggles the first two weeks of the season look familiar. Rougned Odor’s 2015 struggles come to mind. The Rangers sent Odor down after a dreadful first five weeks, and he found himself and returned later in the season and was a key player in the the stretch run.

Maybe that plays into the Rangers’ thinking Saturday on Taveras when the Rangers reinstate Calhoun.

Rangers’ offense fizzles

The Rangers scored 19 runs in the final three games at Tampa Bay by grinding out at-bats and making Rays pitchers stay in the strike zone.

That wasn’t the case against Orioles right-hander Jorge Lopez. For the second straight Friday at Globe Life Field, the opposing starting pitcher retired the first 11 hitters.

At least this one wasn’t another no-hitter.

Woodward said that’s when the Rangers took themselves out of the game. Lopez struck out eight in the first four innings, and the lone Rangers baserunner was Joey Gallo on a two-out walk in the fourth.

That was the Rangers’ lone walk of the game, and they struck out 15 times.

“Guys came at us and attacked us. We just didn’t attack back,” Woodward said. “There were a lot of called third strikes and a lot of chase at the top of the zone. We just didn’t have tough at-bats tonight. If we’re going to be a contending club, we can’t do those things. We can’t give in like that.”

Dahl and Nick Solak opened the fifth with back-to-back homers off Lopez, but the Rangers’ troubles continued thereafter. They gave themselves two chances to tie the game in the seventh and ninth innings, but came up empty.

The struggling Tejeda couldn’t cash in in the seventh as the potential tying run against former Rangers first-round pick Dillon Tate. Tejeda was ahead in the count 2-1, but fouled off a changeup and then swung at another in the dirt in striking out.

“He’s just got to get better pitches to hit,” Woodward said. “He’s young. He’s got to learn how to navigate those at-bats. He saw the changeup two or three times before that pitch. He should have been able to recognize that.”

Foltynewicz fizzles, too

Mike Foltynewicz has the stuff. He has recaptured his velocity. At times it’s easy to see how he pitched himself onto the National League All-Star team in 2018, which isn’t all that long ago.

At other times, though, it’s not that hard to see why the Atlanta Braves did not tender him a contract for this season. Foltynewicz sees it, too.

He wasn’t consistent enough with his command after two scoreless innings in opening his third start with the Rangers. His pitches started finding the middle of the plate, and Orioles hitters were putting the middle of their barrels on them.

Baltimore scored all five of its runs against Foltynewicz in the third, fourth and fifth innings. Six of their seven hits went for extra bases, including homers by D.J. Stewart and Rio Ruiz.

Inconsistency bit Foltynewicz again.

“That was my thing over the last few years, trying to be consistent,” he said. “When you go up, down, up, down, it’s tough to get on a roll.”

The good news is that he is working with his good stuff, unlike last season when he lost strength during the COVID-19 shutdown and had to work at the Braves’ alternate site to recapture it.

Foltynewicz continues to have a positive outlook, and he should, considering where he was last season. He believes that if his stuff is there, he’s going to be successful.

“I’ve just got to execute pitches,” he said. “I’ve got four more days to figure this out, and it’s really nothing to worry about. I’ve just got to make a little bit better pitches in certain situations.”