ARLINGTON -- Cal Quantrill keeps ending up back in the Rangers’ rotation.
And maybe that’s a good thing.
Quantrill, who had a brief one-game stint back in the bullpen on Aug. 8 against the Orioles at home, returned to the rotation when Nathan Eovaldi was placed on the injured list on Aug. 10.
Tuesday was his second start since returning to the rotation. And he logged a win with seven scoreless innings against one of MLB’s highest-scoring offenses, as he carried the Rangers to a 5-0 win over the Nationals to open a three-game set at Globe Life Field.
It was Quantrill’s longest scoreless outing in over two years, when he threw 7 2/3 on May 3, 2024 against the Pirates as a member of the Rockies.
“Honestly, he’s been phenomenal,” said shortstop Corey Seager, who went 2-for-4 in the win. “It’s really not easy to do, either. He competed for a job, made it as a long guy, and then to build up as a starter, making starts in spots that we need to win, and he’s done an absolutely phenomenal job. That was a huge start for us today.”
Quantrill has sneakily become one of the Rangers’ more valuable pitchers this season, even though some numbers don’t fully illustrate it.
And to truly tell the story of Quantrill’s 2026, you have to look back to the World Baseball Classic, when he missed weeks of camp to pitch for Team Canada. The Rangers staff liked him, and knew he had a good shot to break camp with the big league club, but they felt they didn’t get enough time with him in Surprise to fully evaluate him when the time came.
Quantrill opened the season at Triple-A Round Rock after signing a Minor League deal with the Rangers this offseason. When he joined the big league club in mid-April, he was mainly used as a long relief option before injury and necessity forced him into the rotation.
His first start of 2026 came June 23 in Miami (2 IP, 1 ER) before he gradually built up to a full starter’s workload (pitches by start over his first five starts: 34, 55, 66, 79, 86).
“He went down, made the most out of his opportunity,” manager Skip Schumaker said. “He comes up. He becomes the long guy, then becomes kind of a leverage guy at times. He closed a game out for us, then he's thrust it into this rotation because of need, and did a fantastic job building up in the middle of the season. That is unheard of to have that success.”
In total, Quantrill has 26 appearances this season: 17 relief outings and nine starts.
He briefly went back to the bullpen when Cody Bradford returned from a long UCL surgery rehab process just two weeks ago. But Quantrill was again thrust right back into the rotation with Eovaldi’s injury last week.
“It was a hard conversation to tell him he's not in the rotation anymore because Bradford's now healthy,” Schumaker said. “And then a week later we throw him back in there. That is not easy. The entire time all he said was like, ‘I get it, I trust you.’ He's been a pro about every single move; whether he's liked it or not, he understood it. He doesn't have to like those conversations, but I think he trusts us enough that you know we have his best interest and our best interest to do whatever we can to win.”
That’s what it all comes back to: winning.
Quantrill is willing to do whatever it takes to help the Rangers get to the postseason. If that includes the roller coaster ride of bullpen to rotation to bullpen and back again, then so be it.
“It's not the most ideal outcome, but it's baseball,” Quantrill said of his season. “You get what you earn and I think that this has been an opportunity to become a better pitcher, and reestablish myself and prove that I can pitch deep into games, but I can also be good out of the ‘pen. I knew what I was signing up for here. I think we're aligned on what our goals are, and that's to go to the playoffs. I will do whatever is necessary to do that. But it feels good to be back in the rotation and starting to settle into a groove. I thought it all kind of came together today.”