Kumar Rocker’s return to Texas Rangers rotation less than stellar in multiple ways

TAMPA — Kumar Rocker returned to the Rangers rotation. Next question: Will he stay?

Well, for whatever it’s worth, he certainly wasn’t around immediately after a 5-4 loss to Tampa Bay on Wednesday.

There would have been a lot to discuss. But either Rocker left the clubhouse early or was unavailable, uncommon for a starting pitcher. Rocker had “good stuff,” Bruce Bochy said, citing the 16 swing and misses he got and a nice uptick in velocity. But also: More fundamental mistakes. That’s not a euphemism. To be precise, those are Bochy’s words.

Mistakes. Plural.

Forget the first-inning homer or the four hits to start the third, the most damning moment of the start came when Rocker was late to cover first on a ground ball to the right side. A run scored. Then he took several extra strides into the outfield before realizing there had been another runner on base, too. He ended up scoring. It was the fifth run of the game. If you do the math with the final score, it stings even worse.

“You know he made some mistakes,” Bochy said after a quick line of praise. “And, of course, the biggest one is the fundamental of covering first base. The fundamentals got us tonight. That’s a basic play. It could have saved us two runs.

“He just forgot the situation and the other man on third and it compounded the damage. And that’s the difference in the ball game.”

In a nine-start major league career, the fundamentals have quickly become a theme where Rocker’s performance is concerned. On the mound, he’s been a little too predictable, splitting pitches almost exclusively between a fastball and slider/cutter hybrid. But it’s on the other elements where pitchers can help themselves that the issues have cropped up worse.

Rocker, 25, has not had a runner caught stealing while he’s on the mound. They are 6 for 6, including a stolen base in that messy third inning. The Rangers have worked with trying to get him to vary and speed up his delivery times with the pitch.

Bochy even alluded to a previous conversation during Rocker’s two seemingly sparkling rehab starts following a shoulder impingement issues when fundamentals became a conversation. The specific subject: Covering first.

“It was addressed before he got here,” Bochy said. “There was another time while on rehab. It was talked about.”

As long as he was going down that road, Bochy also acknowledged that there are times when Rocker “has to slow the game down.”

It’s hard to do for a rookie, as is. But despite being nearly six months older than fellow Vanderbilt rookie teammate Jack Leiter, Rocker has far less experience. He began the year with only 75 professional innings of work, hardly time to get in a PFP drill, much less a professional routine. Part of that is the late start he got as a pro after being drafted in 2021 by the New York Mets, then having his agreement voided over medical concerns, re-entering the draft in 2022, getting drafted by the Rangers, then tearing the ligament in his elbow six starts into his pro career.

When he returned last year, he rushed through a rehab program, making a handful of starts at three different levels before reaching the majors in September.

But, with a lack of depth in the rotation, the Rangers were forced to overlook a couple of rough spring starts and put him in the opening day rotation this season. He returned to the rotation Wednesday to replace Nathan Eovaldi while he tends to a triceps issue.

It puts the Rangers, who still harbor playoff aspirations despite falling to a season-high four games below .500 on Wednesday, in a tough spot. While they wait for Eovaldi and, further off, Jon Gray and Cody Bradford, can they afford to keep a pitcher who is going to experience “growing pains,” in the rotation? Again, not our words; Bochy’s.

“He’s young, doesn’t have a ton of innings in pro ball, but it’s still something we work on,” Bochy said. “We spend so much time on that, especially getting over there with speed. You can’t be late there. And then, you can’t forget the situation. So, it’s just about gaining awareness. And there are going to be growing pains with some of these young players. He’s got to learn from it.

“It should be second nature. The ball is hit over there; you’re busting tail and covering first base.”

But that didn’t exactly answer the question. Can a team with playoff aspirations also afford “growing pains,” of development?

“You’re going to have it, even if you are trying to get where you want to go when you have young players,” Bochy said. “We hope they learn from it and it doesn’t happen again, especially with the stuff he had. There were times tonight he just over-matched them. And then things just unraveled.”

Here’s exactly how it unraveled. Already down 1-0 on a first-inning homer, Rocker allowed a pair of doubles and a pair of singles with one out in third as the lineup turned over. The top of the order had seen the fastball and cutter/slider mix the first time through. They did what major league hitters do. They adjusted. But Rocker still stood to get out of it down 3-0, had he been able to get to first on Jake Mangum’s grounder to the right side.

He did not. It allowed one run to score. When Rocker took several more strides towards the outfield after the play, he seemed to lose track of Jonathan Aranda, who had been on second. He, too, came around to score.

“He kept walking with his head down,” Aranda said through an interpreter. “I think maybe when he saw we were scoring runs, his head was out of the game and I took advantage of that.

Rocker had been dominant in two rehab outings prior to being activated on Wednesday. He had allowed just two hits in seven shutout innings in two rehab starts at Double-A Frisco and Triple-A Round Rock in the last 10 days. He went four perfect innings for Round Rock last Thursday, then walked the first hitter of the fifth inning before being removed.

But there was also the issue of covering first. It reared up again on Wednesday. Afterwards, Rocker was not at his locker to address the issue, nor could he be found in the clubhouse.

It didn’t matter that he didn’t have anything to say afterwards. That probably said as much as anything.

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