The Texas Rangers today purchased the contract of infielder Jonah Bride, the team announced today. To make room for Bride on the active roster, the Rangers optioned outfielder Alejandro Osuna to AAA Round Rock. To make room for Bride on the 40 man roster, the Rangers transferred pitcher Jake Leiter from the 15 day injured list to the 60 day injured list.
Bride is a 30 year old who played for Skip Schumaker in Miami in 2024, when he had a career best season, slashing .276/.357/.461 while playing first,
second and third base. He has an overall career .221/.311/.313 line, however, which is why he signed a minor league deal with the Rangers this past offseason and has spent the year at Round Rock.
Bride’s overall slash line for Round Rock is a rather pedestrian .282/.401/.425 in 431 plate appearances this season. However, he has put up a very impressive .388/.473/.669 slash line against lefthanded pitchers, which is why the Rangers, who are kind of desperate for a righthanded bench bat, have brought him up. Interestingly, Bride has reverse splits in the majors for his career, slashing .194/.295/.228 against lefties in 272 plate appearances in the bigs, against .238/.321/.367 against righthanded pitchers.
Osuna has played sparingly as of late, getting just one start in the month of April and mainly being used for pinch hitting duties. He’s not a good fit for the roster, as currently constructed, given that he’s a lefthanded hitting outfielder on the bench, and the Rangers need a righthanded hitting bench outfielder, not a lefthanded hitting one. It seems like this might have been an area the team would have wanted to try to address at the deadline, were it not for the fact that Ray Davis is apparently claiming that the team is po’ like Kenny’s family.
Bride will presumably fill in until Josh Jung returns, assuming Jung does return at some point this season.
The move of Leiter to the 60 day injured list is purely procedural in nature, given that he’s spent close to 60 days on the injured list so far on this stint. He still would seem to be on track to return sometime in late-August or early-September.
