Texas Rangers pitcher Cody Bradford gets high fives in the dugout after exiting the game in the fifth inning against the San Francisco Giants Wednesday, Aug 5, 2026 in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/ Richard W. Rodriguez)
Richard W. Rodriguez/AP Photo/Richard W. Rodriguez
ARLINGTON — The notion that reinforcements would eventually arrive has been ever-present since the winter (when the Texas Rangers had only one sidelined starting pitcher), the spring (when they signed a second) and the summer (when a third went down unplanned). This idea that, sooner or later, their somewhat-thin rotation would receive an injection of healthy arms has seemingly lingered in the background of the team’s operations for a mighty long time.
If it feels like that to the organization, or neutral observers, imagine how it’s felt to one backup in question.
“Six-hundred seventy-nine days since I last pitched,” left-handed pitcher Cody Bradford said, “back when there was a team in Oakland still.”
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Even if it didn’t look it.
Bradford pitched 4 ⅓ scoreless innings in a 6-0 win over the San Francisco Giants at Globe Life Field on Wednesday afternoon in his first big league start in nearly two years. The 28-year-old last pitched in the major leagues Sept. 25, 2024, against the Oakland Athletics at the Oakland Coliseum, underwent elbow surgery last summer and navigated a start-and-stop rehabilitation process that lasted nearly three months longer than he or the Rangers originally expected.
“I was really grateful just to be pitching for the Rangers again,” Bradford said. “It’s something I dreamed of as a kid, I grew up a Rangers fan, and I can’t be thankful enough to have another opportunity to do that.”
Bradford threw 50 of his 70 pitches for strikes, and though manager Skip Schumaker nearly lifted him before he faced his last batter, “he was looking good still” despite the fact that he hadn’t pitched this deep into any of his five minor league rehab games. The Aledo native’s fastball was responsible for three of his five strikeouts and averaged 88.8 mph, a full tick slower than it ran two seasons ago, though batters swung and missed seven times when they did offer at it. His changeup notched the other two strikeouts and elicited soft contact. He gave himself a 6.5-out-of-10 grade and believes there’s “a lot” that he can improve upon before his next start.
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“He was on the attack, throwing strikes, and that’s so hard to do after missing two years,” Schumaker said. “It just felt like he was the same guy.”
The offense offered run support as a welcome-back gift. The Rangers scored four runs in the third inning — each with two outs — on hits from Wyatt Langford, Brandon Nimmo, Jake Burger, Justin Foscue, and Elias Diaz off left-handed pitcher Carson Whisenhunt. Langford (who scored the game’s first run on Nimmo’s single) and Foscue (who drove in two more with his first career triple) are the only players on the active roster who appeared in Bradford’s last big league start nearly two years ago.
This was the Rangers lineup the last time that Cody Bradford started a game for them. Only two of these players (Langford and Foscue) are on the roster today. pic.twitter.com/pCdnGbawp2
— Shawn McFarland (@McFarland_Shawn) August 5, 2026
“I’ve played with Cody basically my entire pro career,” Foscue, who was drafted one year after Bradford, said. “I’ve never liked facing him myself when I face him in live at-bats. I was really happy for him to get back. He’s worked hard to come back from these injuries. He showed today that that’s what he can do and he can help the team win at the big league level.”
Bradford showed he can help the team win at a critical time, too, because his return coincided with a quiet trade deadline and a legitimate playoff push on the horizon. His performance helped pull the Rangers to within a game and a half of the first-place Houston Astros in the American League West, and unless the team goes on a significant run or suffers a significant drought, it’s likely that his next handful of starts will carry meaningful consequences as it pertains to postseason chances.
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“We’ve been here before,” Bradford, a World Series champion in his rookie season, said with a smile. “It wouldn’t be our first time.”
Texas Rangers pitcher Cody Bradford follows through on a pitch against the San Francisco Giants in the second inning of a baseball game Wednesday, Aug 5, 2026 in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/ Richard W. Rodriguez)
Richard W. Rodriguez/AP Photo/Richard W. Rodriguez
Bradford’s return is the first of three that the Rangers expect within the month. Schumaker said Jordan Montgomery, whom the Rangers signed in the spring with the belief that he’d return from elbow surgery sometime in the middle of the season, could be activated “soon” and operate as either a starter or a reliever. Jack Leiter, who’s been sidelined since June 21 with a surgically repaired ankle, will throw a second live bullpen this weekend and could start a minor league rehab assignment after that.
Their collective return will give the Rangers flexibility they haven’t had this season. They’ve effectively operated with only six available starters — the five-man rotation that they broke camp with plus former long man Cal Quantrill — and a dearth of internal options. The Rangers have been able to creatively navigate that with the use of four different openers, an occasional bullpen game and crafty schedule manipulation.
The tightrope will only become thinner as the season progresses and as the mileage begins to seriously accumulate. Kumar Rocker has already thrown more innings this season than he has in any previous professional campaign, and MacKenzie Gore is on pace to do the same. Nathan Eovaldi is on track to throw 192 innings — something he hasn’t done in more than a decade — and has already been scratched from two starts this season because of various physical ailments. Jacob deGrom is on schedule to make 32 starts — something he hasn’t done in seven years — and has battled glute soreness for the last month.
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Schumaker said that the Rangers have yet to determine exactly how they will use their six starters for the foreseeable future, but in the present, they’ll use the surplus to “give guys a little bit of time” to rest when needed.
“We need to make sure that we’re still good on this second half health-wise,” Schumaker said. “It’s a good problem to have. There’s going to be probably conversations with guys — there’s a lot of good guys, team guys, that whatever you need to win, they’ll do whatever it takes — but these things always work out. It’s a good problem to have when you have multiple guys that can start.”
It’s been a while since the Rangers have been able to say that.