Carter (back injury) to miss extended time?

ARLINGTON -- Rangers manager Bruce Bochy led off with good injury news on Tuesday afternoon, telling reporters that a trio of starting pitchers -- Max Scherzer, Jon Gray and Tyler Mahle -- are progressing from their respective injuries.

Then he swiftly dealt the bad news: rookie outfielder Evan Carter’s back injury is worse than expected. What they initially thought was lower back tightness for Carter when he landed on the injured list on May 28 is now classified as a stress reaction, according to Bochy.

Carter might miss another month or more as he recovers.

“It’s not great, to be honest,” Bochy said. “It looks like he’s going to have about a month off from baseball stuff. It’s a little worse than we thought. It’s not a stress fracture. I think we’re calling it a stress reaction. That means it’s real close to being one. We need to have this just calm down, but we’re looking at an extended period of time.”

Carter entered the season as one of the top five prospects in baseball, according to MLB Pipeline, after making his MLB debut late last season. He was a breakout star on the biggest stage in 2023, hitting .306 with a 1.058 OPS in 23 regular-season games, and then appearing in every game of the Rangers’ World Series run, hitting .300 with a .917 OPS in the postseason.

This season hasn’t quite produced the same results for the 21-year-old, though Bochy believes the injury was bothering Carter more than he let on, and that it affected his performance at the plate.

Carter missed seven games from May 11-17 with back soreness. He initially returned without an IL stint, though it was clear he still wasn’t exactly right. When he landed on the IL, he was riding a nine-game hitless streak (0-for-20) with seven strikeouts and just one walk. Additionally, he had a .095/.156/.143 slash line over his past 15 games.

This isn’t the first time a back injury has limited Carter. He played just 32 games with Single-A Down East during his professional debut in 2021 due to a stress fracture in his back, though he hit .236/.438/.387 in that small sample that season.

“Sure, you have to say it’s a little concerning,” Bochy said of Carter’s two back injuries at a young age. “We’re probably going to have to make an adjustment somewhere here with his workouts and building some strength. He’s a young kid and doesn’t have a lot of meat on him. That’s going to be the thing, to get him stronger, and try to avoid these types of things.”

The Rangers have outfield depth in Carter’s absence. Fellow highly touted rookie Wyatt Langford was activated off the injured list the same day Carter was placed on it, and Langford has played left field in five of six games since his return.

Adolis García (right field) and Leody Taveras (center field) have held down the other two outfield positions, with Travis Jankowski, Robbie Grossman and Derek Hill as depth options behind them. Utilityman Ezequiel Duran has also played 13 games in the outfield this season.