With the 2025 Texas Rangers season having come to an end, we shall be, over the course of the offseason, taking a look at every player who appeared in a major league game for the Texas Rangers in 2025.
Today we are looking at relief pitcher Luke Jackson.
The Texas Rangers had a lot of success in 2025 with a bullpen that was cobbled together with a collection of low-cost, low-profile relievers.
Not all of those guys worked out, however.
See, e.g., Luke Jackson.
It was unfortunate. Jackson returning to the Rangers, the team that drafted him in 2010, that barely used him in 2015 and 2016 (despite the rather dire need for middle relief and up-and-down arms those two seasons), that essentially gave him away to the Braves after the 2016, in exchange for pitchers Tyrell Jenkins (selected five picks after the Rangers took Jackson in 2010, and who was lost to the Cincinnati Reds on a waiver claim a couple of weeks after the Rangers acquired him) and Brady Feigl, only to see him turn into a useful reliever while with Atlanta, had the potential to be a feel-good storyline for the 2025 Rangers.
Thus of us still mad that Jeff Banister chose to use Shawn Tolleson for a second inning in an 11 inning win in Seattle in 2015, after the Rangers had scored 8 runs in the top of the inning, rather than having Luke Jackson close it out, could be belatedly vindicated, kind of, by having Jackson return to the Rangers and perform well a decade later.
Twas not to be.
Assigned the closer role out of the gate, Jackson was handed the ball in the ninth inning of a tie game on Opening Day, and after striking out Tristan Casas to start the inning, went walk, infield single, home run. The Rangers lost, 5-2.
An ominous start to the season.
Jackson stayed in the closer role for the first month of the season, even if he didn’t really inspire a ton of confidence.
He lost the closer role after a pair of especially frustrating outings in late April. The first was a one pitch loss in San Francisco in a game where Heliot Ramos came all the way around to score via a walk off Little League home run on a weak infield chopper, courtesy of throwing errors by Jackson and Jake Burger.
In a season full of ignominious defeats, this one was one of the most ignominious of them all.
The second was at home against Oakland a few days later, when, after Robert Garcia allowed a leadoff single in the ninth of a 1-1 game, Jackson was asked to come in and shut things down.
LuJack did not, in fact, shut things down. Quite the opposite. He gave up a homer to the first batter he faced, Brent Rooker, and then gave up a single, struck out Nick Kurtz somehow, then issued a pair of 3-1 walks to Luis Urias and JJ Bleday. He was then pulled for Shawn Armstrong, who struck out Gio Urshela for the second out, making the subsequent Lawrence Butler grand slam all the more demoralizing.
Interestingly, as in the Opening Day loss, this 7-1 Oakland defeat saw Nathan Eovaldi start, pitch well, Chris Martin record four outs, Robert Garcia record two outs, and then Jackson gascan things in the ninth, having to have Shawn Armstrong come in and retire the final two batters of the ninth. The main differences are that on Opening Day Garcia pitched before Martin, whereas it was vice versa in this game, and Jackson started the ninth on Opening Day, rather than coming in with a runner on and no one out as in the Oakland loss.
Anyway, Jackson, sporting at that point a 6.55 ERA, was used in a couple of low leverage situations before getting another save opportunity, at home against the Rockies in a 2-1 game. It was his second one pitch out of the season, as Ryan McMahon smoked a line drive on the first pitch that hit Jackson in the wrist, resulting in him leaving the game, though avoiding an actual i.l. stint.
Despite the fireworks, Jackson actually only had two blown saves for the Rangers in 2025. One was in Oakland, three days before the one pitch clownball loss in San Francisco. The other was a little over a week after he was hit by the McMahon comebacker. With two on and two outs in the eighth in New York, he was brought in to face Aaron Judge with the Rangers up 3-2. Judge singled to tie things up, though a TOOTBLAN by Trent Grisham, thrown out at third, let the Rangers escape the inning with a tie.
Didn’t matter, though, as Jackson allowed Jasson Dominguez to homer in the bottom of the 9th for the walkoff loss.
That was it for high-leverage situations for a while, though really, he wasn’t that bad for most of May and June. Other than the Dominguez home run, the only run he allowed from the beginning of May through late June was in a game against the White Sox when Garcia came into the game for him in the ninth and allowed an inherited runner to score. The Rangers still won that game, in case you are curious, on an 11th inning walkoff single by now-former-Ranger Adolis Garcia against now-current-Ranger Tyler Alexander.
Still, he wasn’t missing bats, and he was walking too many batters. He had a couple of problematic outings against Seattle in late June, a pair of 12 inning losses where he allowed a Zombie Runner to score in the 10th in the first of those games and somehow allowed just two runs in the 10th in the second game despite giving up two singles and issuing three walks. That second game was the one where Corey Seager tied up the game in the bottom of the 10th with a home run, and had a chance to tie it again in the 12th, but ended up with just a sac fly, because even Corey Seager is only human. It was followed up by a 0 IP, 2 run outing in San Diego when, asking to protect a 6-2 lead, he went walk-single-walk before being hooked.
The final Rangers blowup came in Anaheim, when Jackson came into an 8-8 game in the bottom of the eighth and promptly allowed a single and a homer, along with another run that scored before he could escape the inning. Jackson only pitched three more times for Texas over the next two weeks (which included the All Star Break) before being designated for assignment to create a roster spot for Jon Gray.
Jackson was signed by the Tigers after he cleared waivers and became a free agent, and in his first outing for Detroit, he was asked to protect a 10 run lead against the Jays in the ninth inning, but ended up allowing four runs on three walks and a pair of singles before having to be bailed out by Dietrich Enns. No one wants to have to be bailed out by Dietrich Enns.
Jackson made only two more appearances for Detroit before being DFA’d, waived, and released once again. He was snagged by the Mariners in late August, putting up a respectable 2.38 ERA and 2.69 FIP in 10 outings for them over the final month, and getting a couple of garbage time appearances in the postseason for Seattle.
All told, Jackson put up a 4.11 ERA in 35 innings over 39 games for the Rangers, with a 4.84 xERA and a 5.05 FIP. When you combine his work with the Tigers and Mariners, his full season line shows an ERA of 4.06, a 4.30 xERA and a 4.49 FIP. His K rate was a paltry 17.4%, well below his career average, and his 12.8% walk rate was the highest of his career in a full season. His fastball velocity was the lowest it has been since 2018. He is currently unsigned, and at age 34, would seem likely to be looking at a minor league deal with an invite to the major league camp.
I’m guessing that deal is not going to be with the Rangers.
Something interesting, maybe only to me…when you look at Jackson’s most similar pitchers through age 32 on B-R, you see four former Rangers — Terry Mathews, Nick Masset, Luis Garcia, and Danny Patterson. Two of them are best known for being a component of a pair of significant and controversial trades in Rangers history. The other two aren’t really best known for anything Rangers related.
Previously:
