ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — Texas Rangers ace Jacob deGrom was placed on the 15-day injured list Saturday with right elbow inflammation after early exits in two of his last three starts.

While his departures from those games were attributed to right wrist soreness and forearm tightness, general manager Chris Young said an MRI showed some inflammation in his elbow.

“There’s no need to push him,” Young said. “He came in today and felt OK, which is a positive, but given how important he is to us and our season, we’re going to play this very cautiously and see how he responds over the next several days to treatment.”

Young said the Rangers should have a pretty good idea in 7-10 days on what the next steps would be for the two-time National League Cy Young Award winner who during free agency in December signed a $185 million, five-year contract with the Rangers.

The Rangers recalled right-handed pitcher Yerry Rodríguez from Triple-A Round Rock.

When deGrom left a game in Kansas City after four hitless innings on April 17, the Rangers said the move was precautionary because of wrist soreness.

After the right-hander left his start against the New York Yankees with two outs in the fourth inning Friday night, manager Bruce Bochy said the move was again precautionary, and that he had forearm tightness. Before Saturday’s game, and Young’s announcement, Bochy said the “same thing cramped up on” deGrom.

Texas has won all six games started by deGrom (2-0), but he has been limited to 30 1/3 innings. He has a 2.67 ERA with 45 strikeouts and four walks.

In between the two starts he left early over injury concerns, deGrom struck out 11 batters and allowed one earned run over six innings in a win against Oakland last Sunday.

DeGrom played his first nine big league seasons with the New York Mets. He was plagued by injuries the past two years, when he was limited to 156 1/3 innings over 26 starts.

Before missing the final three months of the 2021 season with right forearm tightness and a sprained elbow, deGrom had a career-low 1.08 ERA over 92 innings. He was then shut down late in spring training in 2022 year because of a stress reaction in his right scapula and didn’t make his first big-league start until Aug. 2.

___

More AP MLB: https://apnews.com/tag/MLB and https://twitter.com/AP

The Associated Press