Kyle Cody looks to build on lasting impression he made with Rangers last year - The Dallas Morning News

The Rangers may limit Kyle Cody’s trips through the batting order early in the season or they may limit his total innings for the year.

What they don’t want to limit is his chances of making the opening day rotation.

Cody, 26, was the closest thing the Rangers had to a breakout starter in 2020, if 22 innings of major league work can be considered enough for “breakout” status. But, for a guy who had not pitched above Class A and who threw only five innings over 2018-19 due to Tommy John surgery, he still made a lasting impression.

“There’s a lot there,” manager Chris Woodward said Sunday. “Everything he does has purpose. I saw it last year on the mound. There were times he didn’t have a whole lot of failure, but when he did get into trouble, nothing really shook him. There’s just a different look in his eye. And I think that that shows just how convicted he is in what he’s doing. He is just completely in the moment.”

Cody, a right-hander, made eight appearances over the final five weeks of the season, including five starts. He never went more than five innings because the Rangers tried to protect his workload. He also never allowed more than one run.

Those five-inning outings might constitute a good road map for handling him early in the 2021 season. He faced only two batters a third time in a game. While he builds up arm strength and works to better use his changeup as a third pitch, it might be optimal for him to face lineups only twice. That would allow the Rangers to pair him with a multi-inning reliever — perhaps a lefty — in a “piggyback” situation.

“We haven’t gotten into really in-depth yet,” Cody said Sunday. “But I kind of figured 22 innings last year, that’s not enough to go out and say, ‘Yeah, you got 200 innings this year.’ It was my first year after [Tommy John] so I’m open to evaluating things throughout the season, to see how I’m feeling and go from there.”

What 2020 was good for, though, was to get his feet wet as a major leaguer.

“When they called me up, I didn’t just want to be a one-time up and then go down,” Cody said. “If they called me up, I wanted to there and prove I’m good enough to be here. Last year allowed me to get a little bit comfortable with what it’s like in the major leagues. And that has allowed me to come to spring a little more comfortable and ready to go.”

Find more Rangers coverage from The Dallas Morning News here.

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