Cole Ragans is having a great spring training. He has struck out 20 of the batters he has faced and only walked 4.
Ragans has pitched in 13 innings, giving him a 13.8 strikeouts per 9 innings pitched. That’s good, in case you don’t know.
His velocity is up significantly from 2022. He is hovering around 95 mph and in 2022 he averaged 92.1 mph.
He has even flirted with 100 mph in his appearances. Ragans was asked about the velo and why he is doing so well this spring.
It is a big plus. Ragans is striking out a lot of batters.
I know the rule is don’t take too much from spring training, good or bad. However, its hard not to look at Ragans and be impressed.
New manager Bruce Bochy has had nothing but praise for the left-hander. Bochy told the media Ragans has been pounding the strikezone and has looked really good this spring.
Ragans is trying to crack a rotation that includes Jacob deGrom, Martin Perez, Nathan Evoldi, Jon Gray and Andrew Heaney. He is the odd man out with that list of gentlemen.
The Rangers could choose to go with a six man rotation, some have suggested. Ragans has surpassed Glenn Otto and Dane Dunning in my opinion because of his spring.
Dunning and Otto could be bullpen options, and for that matter so could Ragans. I think he is going to make the Major League Roster, one way or the other.
The Texas Rangers have some tough decisions to make on the pitching side. In case you were wondering, that is not a bad thing.
The next few cuts in camp should be very interesting. We’ll keep an eye on it here and also on The Ranger Report Podcast.
