The Rangers put right-hander Jakob Junis on the 15-day injured list Thursday, retroactive to July 29, with a left adductor strain. It's the second IL stint of the month for Junis, who also missed 11 games from July 1-17 with a right hip impingement. MLBTR broke the news along with the corresponding move: right-hander Winston Santos gets called up to fill the roster spot.
This one stings more than a random middle-innings absence. Junis has quietly been one of Texas's best bullpen arms all year, leading the team with 14 holds while working as the primary setup man in front of closer Jacob Latz. Through 40 innings he's running a 2.70 ERA with an 18.3% strikeout rate and a walk rate under half the league average for relievers — the kind of steady, low-drama production that keeps a bullpen from imploding late.
And this bullpen has needed that stability. Texas ranks 19th in the majors in relief ERA at 4.23, hardly the profile of a team trying to make a real August run. Losing Junis, even for what's currently described as an injury of unclear severity, knocks out one of the few arms that had been holding that unit together.
The timing is what makes this actually interesting. The Rangers already went out and got aggressive on bullpen help this week, flipping infield prospect Angel Arredondo to the Angels for catcher Logan O'Hoppe and hard-throwing reliever Chase Silseth, who's expected to slot into high-leverage work alongside Latz. That trade looked like a nice complement to Junis. Now, with the trade deadline landing August 3, it looks a lot more like a necessity — Texas may need Silseth to help cover for exactly the innings Junis was supposed to be pitching.
For now, the severity of the adductor strain is still unclear, which means the runway matters. A short IL stint and Junis slides right back into the setup role once he's healthy. A longer one, and Texas is running its bullpen down the stretch with a rookie-level fill-in, a newly acquired arm still getting acclimated, and a closer in Latz who suddenly has a lot less protection in front of him heading into a playoff push.