The Rangers announced Friday that they’ve reinstated lefty Jordan Montgomery from the 60-day injured list. Right-hander Nolan Kingham was designated for assignment in order to open a 40-man roster spot.
Montgomery, 33, was once a solid big league starter but it’s been a tumultuous few years. A free agent in the 2023-24 offseason, he was coming off a really strong run. From 2021 to 2023, he posted a 3.48 earned run average over 94 regular season starts. He made another six postseason appearances for the Rangers at the end of that run, putting up a 2.90 ERA and helping them win the World Series.
Despite that, his market was softer than expected and he lingered unsigned well into spring training. He and the Diamondbacks eventually agreed to a one-year, $25MM deal at the end of March. That deal also had a $20MM vesting player option for 2025 if he made ten starts in 2024. After a delayed start to the season due to the late signing, he eventually triggered that option but had a horrible season. He posted a 6.23 ERA over 25 appearances, including 21 starts. He unsurprisingly decided to exercise that player option and stick with the Snakes for 2025 but then he required Tommy John surgery in March of that year.
After missing the entire season, Texas brought him back on a modest $1.25MM deal. He has been on the injured list until now, still working his way back from last year’s surgery. He has been on a rehab assignment for the past six-plus weeks. Rehab assignments for pitchers normally come with a 30-day maximum but an exception is made when a guy is coming back from UCL surgery. A team can apply for a ten-day extension, with a maximum of three such extensions allowed, so those situations can effectively see a pitcher rehab for 60 days.
For what it’s worth, Montgomery has seemed to be in decent form. He has thrown 24 innings with a 3.75 ERA. His 20.6% strikeout rate is a bit low for him but he has only walked 2.9% of batters faced.
Texas won’t be installing him into the rotation, however. Manger Skip Schumaker says, per Shawn McFarland of The Dallas Morning News, both Montgomery and Cal Quantrill are heading to the bullpen, as the rotation will be Jacob deGrom, Nathan Eovaldi, MacKenzie Gore, Kumar Rocker and Cody Bradford going forward. Quantrill has essentially been in the rotation since Jack Leiter hit the IL in June with a right ankle issue but Bradford’s recent return will bump him back to the ‘pen, and Montgomery as well.
Leiter isn’t too far from a return either. Per Jeff Wilson of DLLS Sports, he will throw a live batting practice on Saturday. If he can get to 45 pitches tomorrow, he might only need two rehab starts, so he could be back in a couple of weeks. Injuries can change things in a hurry but it doesn’t currently look like there’s a great path to a rotation opportunity for Montgomery or Quantrill.
Kingham, 29, was just added to the roster six days ago. He made one appearance, allowing one run in one inning on Monday. It seems the Rangers mostly wanted him to serve as a fresh arm for a few days while they waited to activate Montgomery. With the trade deadline in the past, Kingham will be placed on waivers in the coming days.
He was once a prospect of note in Atlanta’s system but that was a few years ago. He spent 2024 and 2025 in the Mexican League. He got a minor league deal with the Rangers in May. He logged 46 1/3 innings over 11 Triple-A appearances with a 6.99 ERA. That was in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League and he had an unlucky .344 batting average on balls in play and 62.3% strand rate. His 21.5% strikeout rate, 8.3% walk rate and 41.7% ground ball rate were all fairly average figures.
Photo courtesy of Nick Turchiaro, Imagn Images
