Rangers dealt playoff plans blow after Corey Seager undergoes surgery

The Texas Rangers will be without shortstop Corey Seager just as the regular season reaches its climax. Seager underwent an appendectomy Thursday and no date has been set for his return with just over four weeks of regular season games to play.

The five-time All-Star complained of abdominal pain during Wednesday’s 7-3 victory against the Los Angeles Angels. The Rangers confirmed that Seager had been diagnosed with appendicitis. Surgery was performed in Texas after the team had jetted out to California for the start of the series against the Athletics.

When could Corey Seager return for the Rangers?

Seager could be out for two or three weeks, or potentially even longer but president of baseball operations Chris Young is hopeful that the player will be back for the tail end of the campaign, with upcoming series against Miami, Minnesota and Cleveland.

“Corey did not want to rule out the season. In fact, he’s been researching athletes who’ve come back from this quickly. The most important thing is to make sure that Corey’s health is right,” Young explained.

Seager, who is almost halfway through his $325 million, 10-year contract, has missed a total of 33 games this season due to a niggling hamstring injury. He has an .860 OPS with 21 homers and 50 RBIs in 102 games.

The Rangers’ chances of making the 2025 playoffs

Losing him is a blow to the Rangers’ ambitions of making it to the postseason. The team sits eighth in the American League (68-67) with a 5% chance of making it to the playoffs. Bruce Bochy‘s team would need an almost flawless run of results in September and hope that the two teams above them, the Royals and the Mariners, both slip up.

In the meantime, Bochy will turn to Ezequiel Duran and Josh Smith to cover while Seager is out.

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