ARLINGTON – Now here’s a new one: a Rangers player left a game with a hamstring injury … and isn’t expected to miss a start.
At least, not according to Brandon Nimmo.
Nimmo left Wednesday’s game against the Yankees with right hamstring tightness after going slowly and stiffly from second to third on a ground ball in the fifth inning. Nimmo, 32, said he felt the tightness after hustling to first to beat out a hit. It got tight on him at second base after advancing on Josh Jung’s single. And when he went to third on Joc Pederson’s grounder, he did so slowly and stiffly.
It, however, was not a new feeling for Nimmo, who dealt with two hamstring strains early in his career, and some occasions where the fascia (the thin layer of tissue that wraps around muscles) gets irritated and he feels a “little sting” at the back of his hamstring.
“I’ve dealt with this before and it just normally ends up being a little bit of a fascial thing,” Nimmo said afterward. “In the past, if I try and push through that, then it turns into something bigger. So Skip [Schumaker] and I were talking about it [at third base during the injury delay] and he said, ‘Hey, I don’t want you to try and push through this. Missing a half of a game is better than a few weeks.’
“I’m not concerned about it. I’m just really thankful to have a manager that cares about the long game and not just the short game.”
Nimmo does, however, have a history of right hamstring strains. He missed six weeks in 2017 with one and 12 days in 2021. He adopted a new training regimen after the 2022 season to more efficiently build up his ramp-up for games and has been one of the game’s most durable players over the last four seasons. He’s played in at least 151 games every year since 2022.
Nimmo was hitting .290 with a .364 OBP and .824 OPS at the time of the injury on Wednesday.