Texas Rangers show they are all in after trades for Max Scherzer and Jordan Montgomery | Locked on Rangers 

The Rangers needed to bolster their starting rotation and they did it in a big way over the weekend.

ARLINGTON, Texas — The Texas Rangers had a strange weekend that was both good and bad. 

It was a bad weekend because they traveled to San Diego to play the Padres, who have had an up-and-down, disappointing season and yet swept the Rangers in three games. The Rangers ran into the Joe Musgrove, Yu Darvish, and Blake Snell combo and couldn’t do much against them. They were outscored 16-4 and were shut out on Saturday. 

The team also put starter Nathan Eovaldi, who stepped up in a big way in Jacob deGrom’s absence, on the 15-day IL with a forearm strain over the weekend, so things were not looking good. 

Then the team made a flurry of big moves ahead of the trade deadline on Tuesday by acquiring starting pitchers Max Scherzer from the New York Mets on Saturday and Jordan Montgomery from the St. Louis Cardinals on Sunday. 

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Host Brice Paterik of Locked On Rangers discussed the wild weekend for the Rangers and gave his thoughts about the trades they made. 

“The Montgomery trade makes me a little nervous about the Eovaldi injury. Maybe this is just precautionary. Maybe this is something the Rangers were going to do anyway before they announced him (Eovaldi) going on the IL,” Paterik said. “I thought it was a smart (because) it was a move they needed to make to bolster the starting rotation and add guys with playoff experience.” 

The Scherzer move on Saturday let everyone around baseball know the Rangers were going all in this season. They currently lead the AL West by one game thanks to that sweep by the Padres, and they needed pitching reinforcements. 

Texas’ General Manager Chris Young said about Scherzer, “Max’s pedigree is of a future Hall of Fame pitcher,” He added, “The winner that he is, is a perfect fit for what we need right now. I’ve always said that you can never have enough starting pitching. And to add somebody of Max’s caliber is just a great addition to our club. We landed the player that we felt like is going to help us get where we want to go this year.”

As for Montgomery, Young said, “Jordan Montgomery is having a tremendous year. We felt like he was one of the better starters on the market. And given where we are, that we needed to continue to upgrade our rotation. We addressed that.” 

Montgomery wasn’t the only pitcher the Rangers got from the Cardinals. Reliever Chris Stratton was also part of the package. Montgomery is 6-9 with a 3.42 ERA in 21 starts. Stratton has appeared in 42 games and he’s 1-1 with a 4.36 ERA and one save. 

Scherzer, who was the big get for the Rangers over the weekend, is 9-4 with a 4.01 ERA in 19 starts. 

The Rangers traded two prospects and a reliever for Montgomery and Stratton; INF prospect Thomas Saggese, RHP prospect Tekoah Roby, and LHP John King.

They traded INF prospect Luisangel Acuña, who is Ronald Acuña Jr.’s brother, to the Mets in exchange for Scherzer and cash. 

The Rangers’ rotation, which is still one of the best in the league, has struggled since June 1, posting a collective 4.60 ERA. Scherzer is essentially replacing deGrom, who they signed to be their ace over winter and who was lost to Tommy John surgery earlier this season. 

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