'I Feel Like I Have in the Past': Matt Bush Ready For Another Shot With Rangers

When the Texas Rangers travel to Toronto to open the 2022 season, Matt Bush will go with them, feeling like the same guy who was a key part of the bullpen when the team played there in the 2016 postseason.

For the second consecutive season, Matt Bush has come into Texas Rangers camp as a non-roster invitee and won a spot in the bullpen.

Bush, 35, showed he still has something in the tank with his upper-90s fastball and exceptional breaking balls throughout spring training. And on a revamped 2022 roster, Bush could fill a number of roles, including high-leverage innings and opening games.

"Everything feels really good right now," Bush said. "Knock on wood, but I feel like I have in the past. That makes me really good about it. I'm with a team now where we have a lot of depth. [We have] 10 guys to start out in the bullpen. That's a lot of arms. No one has to really carry the load. It's just very exciting to get this thing going."

Bush was a valuable arm in the Texas bullpen during the 2016-17 seasons, posting a combined 3.08 ERA and 1.18 WHIP over 115 appearances. His career, however, has been derailed by multiple arm injuries since then, not throwing a big league pitch in 2019-20.

After he fought back from Tommy John surgery in 2019, Bush broke camp with the Rangers last season as one of the veteran arms in the back end of the bullpen. However, he didn't make it past the second week of April before an injury to his flexor tendon sidelined him for the rest of the season.

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Bush was able to make one final appearance in the Rangers' season finale, in which he logged a scoreless inning. Given his injury history and his age, some thought it might have been the final outing of Bush's career. However, the Rangers supported Bush through another lengthy rehab and gave him time to also tend to his wife and newborn child, which made the road to a possible return much easier and kept the competitive fire burning.

"I felt better than I thought or expected because initially the injury was just really hard to deal with after already coming back from the Tommy John," Bush said. "So it was a little bit up in the air, like, 'Am I going to be able to do this again? Can I go through all of the mental struggle and the grind of doing all the rehab once again?' But I just stuck to it. The team was really supportive."

Bush took advantage of being a non-roster player during the Major League Baseball lockout. He made his way to Arizona for minor league camp and was able to get a head start in his ramp up, throwing plenty of bullpen sessions and live batting practice.

"I definitely think it paid off. It's better than just working out at home," Bush said. "It's just not the same as being with all the strength coaches, your teammates, the excitement of baseball once again, putting the uniform on, being put through drills, the calisthenics, the workouts. It just builds from there."

Bush may feel like he did in the past, and he'll get to revisit a key location from his most successful time as a big-league pitcher. The Rangers open the season on Friday in Toronto, the same place where the club played its last postseason game in 2016.

"I had the best time of my life, baseball-wise, playing in the playoffs in Toronto," Bush said. "With our history there, things are coming back to where they first started."