Rangers’ Corey Seager to have season-ending surgery on sports hernia

Corey Seager will miss the Texas Rangers‘ remaining 16 games of the 2024 season. The All-Star shortstop will undergo surgery to repair a sports hernia, general manager Chris Young announced Thursday.

Seager last played on Sept. 2 and was placed on the injured list Sept. 4. His season concludes with a .278 batting average, .864 OPS, 21 doubles, 30 home runs and 74 RBI. Seager has hit 30 homers in each of his three seasons with Texas.

The 10-year veteran is having a hernia repaired on the right side of his groin, pairing with the procedure he had on the left side in January, reports the Dallas Morning News’ Evan Grant. Seager played with the sports hernia on his left side through the end of last season, including during the Rangers’ World Series run. Recovery sidelined him through most of spring training.

By having this surgery in mid-September, the expectation is for Seager to be fully recovered and ready for 2025 spring training. Being able to train in the offseason was important to Seager, as he told the Associated Press when he went on the IL.

Injuries have limited Seager to fewer than 125 games each of the past two seasons. Last year, strains to his hamstring and thumb sidelined him for nearly six weeks combined.

The Rangers made it to the postseason last year as a wild card (they lost the tiebreaker for the AL West title after matching the Houston Astros with a 90-72 record) but currently sit third in the AL West with a 70-76 record.

This week should be a particularly interesting one for Texas, with top pitching prospect Kumar Rocker making his MLB debut on Thursday, followed by Jacob deGrom pitching for the first time this season on Friday and Max Scherzer returning to the Rangers’ rotation on Saturday.