ARLINGTON, Texas — If you don't know it already, there is a new name you need to get to know for the Texas Rangers.
"I'm not really surprised that he's here," Evan Carter said of Rangers rookie Wyatt Langford making the big league team out of spring training. "It was almost expected."
Langford, off a tremendous spring, will indeed be on the Opening Day roster for the defending champs. And he's not surprised he's here either.
"Just the way I was playing," he said, "I felt like hey, I belong here."
Manager Bruce Bochy agreed.
"He checked off every box to make this team," Bochy said. "So it was really neat to tell him that."
When manager Bochy did tell him that, Langford took it in stride. A quick handshake and a thank you, and on to business.
"I think he fully expected it, but you don't know for sure," Bochy said. "In a good way, in a humble way. You saw it. It wasn't like he was like 'duh'. It wasn't one of those. He's just got a great way about him."
The expectations for Langford are high enough as it is. But to add to it all, the player scouts compare him to the most is Angels superstar Mike Trout.
"You know, you're talking the best player in the game, for a long, long time," Bochy said. "But, yeah, I can see why people would say that, at his young age, and the way he's playing."
"I mean yeah," Rangers third baseman Josh Jung said with a smile, when asked if he sees the Trout comparisons. "He's a really special talent. And we're really lucky to have him."
Langford doesn't make too much of it.
"It's pretty cool to be compared to one of the best to ever do it," Langford said, "but like I said earlier, just gotta take it day by day."
"Just go play your game," Jung said, referring to both Langford and fellow rookie Evan Carter. "Don't try to be anybody else, don't try to be anything else. What you are is perfect."
What a wonderful sentiment. And Langford is perfectly ready to become a key piece for the defending champs.
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