OAKLAND — The Texas Rangers placed rookie outfielder Wyatt Langford on the 10-day injured list with a right hamstring strain Monday, and recalled infielder Jonathan Ornelas in a corresponding move.
Langford was removed from Saturday’s win against the Kansas City Royals with hamstring soreness and did not play in Sunday’s series finale. Rangers manager Bruce Bochy said Sunday that the strain was “slightly more than a Grade 1″ and estimated Langford would likely miss three to four weeks.
The 22-year-old slashed .224/.295/.293 with four extra base hits in his first 31 major league games but had been in a 9 for 52 (.173) drought in his last 15 games before the injury. Langford said that he felt something in his hamstring in his second at-bat Saturday, but it felt fine afterward; in his third at-bat, it actively impacted his running ability.
“It always sucks when you get hurt, I guess,” Langford said Monday. “I’m just kind of taking it day-by-day, I think. Two-to-four [weeks], probably, something like that.”
This is the first significant injury of Langford’s brief professional career. He said that he’s never missed time with a hamstring injury before this one.
“You hate to see it,” Rangers manager Bruce Bochy said. “That’s always tough. Looking back, I wish I had known anything was there as far as the hamstring — which we didn’t know — that he had dealt with it before. But it just got to the point where he felt like he had to say something.”
Ornelas, 23, has slashed .278/.320/.400 with a pair of home runs in 24 games for Triple-A Round Rock this season. He debuted with the Rangers last September, played in eight games and recorded one hit. He provides defensive flexibility in Texas’ infield, while the Rangers will likely use a platoon of players — including infielder Ezequiel Duran and outfield Travis Jankowski — to replace Langford’s reps at designated hitter and left field.
The Rangers chose Ornelas over other 40-man roster options Dustin Harris and Sam Huff.
“A little bit less [nerves] for sure,” Ornelas said of his second callup vs. his first. “It’s never going to be like the first time. The first time’s just anxiety and all that coming in, and you just want to perform. Coming in now, it’s a little bit less, but you still want to do your job, you still want to help the team win, so there’s still some butterflies there.”
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