Dunning to i.l., White, Leiter up, Grossman active

In advance of today’s doubleheader against the Oakland A’s, the Texas Rangers have placed Dane Dunning on the 15 day injured list, have recalled Owen White from AAA Round Rock, have added Jack Leiter as the 27th man for the doubleheader, have added Robbie Grossman to the active roster, and have optioned infielder Jonathan Ornelas to AAA Round Rock.

Grossman we discussed earlier today. The Rangers traded Bubba Hoopii-Tuianetoa for him, and DFA’d Kolton Ingram to clear a 40 man roster spot. Apparently, he is expected to arrive at Oakland Coliseum at some point while games are going on, so the Rangers went ahead and activated him. Ornelas, who was called up when Wyatt Langford went on the i.l. to give Texas a warm body on the bench, returns to AAA.

Leiter is 27th man because whoever the 27th man is can be recalled to the majors after he’s been returned to the minors from his 27th man assignment without spending the requisite 15 days in the minors. Thus, the Rangers can keep Owen White up for a few more days, send Leiter back down so he isn’t using a spot on the active roster those few days, and then bring Leiter back next week when he is scheduled to start again.

We all expected White to come up to give the Rangers an extra arm in the bullpen. The expectation was that Yerry Rodriguez, who threw a metric shit-ton of pitches yesterday, would be sent down to make room for him on the roster. Instead, it is Dane Dunning, who started on May 4 — four days ago — in the Rangers’ 15-4 win at Kansas City, who is removed from the roster, due to what Bruce Bochy says is a shoulder injury.

Dunning, you may recall, was cruising through four innings, facing the minimum and allowing just one hit. In the fifth, he suddenly lost his command, going 2-0 on Salvador Perez before getting him to fly out, going 3-2 to the next three batters (single, double, K), giving up a first pitch single to Hunter Renfroe, then walking Kyle Isbel on five pitches before being pulled for Josh Sborz.

It appeared at the time that Dunning had just lost his command in that inning. It appears that, instead, there was something going on with his shoulder. Given the late announcement that he is going on the i.l., I am guessing that there was not the degree of progress shown that the Rangers thought/hoped would be shown, and thus decided to put him on the i.l. when they could backdate the move the maximum three days.

At least I hope that is the case, and this is something where he will be back quickly, rather than something that will keep him out longer. UPDATE — Jeff Wilson says it is a rotator cuff strain, and Dunning is expected to miss about the same amount of time as Josh Sborz did. Sborz pitched on April 6 in the majors, and made his next appearance on a rehab assignment with Frisco on April 23.

Jack Leiter was already going to be joining the rotation for a period of time once Nathan Eovaldi went on the injured list. Eovaldi, who went on the 15 day i.l. just six days ago, is expected to be back after the minimum amount of time or a few days longer, so he will be back before terribly long, but it still more than a week before Eovaldi can be activated. In his absence, I’m guessing that Jose Urena stays in the rotation, after his respectable work yesterday.