ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — Texas Rangers shortstop Corey Seager was out of the lineup for the second straight game Tuesday night since getting hit by a pitch on his left wrist.
Manager Bruce Bochy said Seager took some swings before the series opener at home against San Diego, and was doing better since getting hit Saturday night. The shortstop went to the ground before getting up and walking off the field after getting struck on a check swing in Baltimore.
Initial X-rays revealed no broken bone, and that was confirmed by an MRI on Monday after the Rangers got home from the trip.
While the Rangers hope to get Seager back soon, third baseman Josh Jung hasn't swung a bat since his last rehabilitation game June 20. He is coming back from a fractured right wrist that occurred when he was hit by a pitch in the fourth game of the season on April 1. He had surgery the next day.
Jung has been dealing with inflammation and soreness in the tendon of his wrist after 17 at-bats in four rehab games.
“Just trying to get this thing to calm down. That’s really all we’re doing,” Jung said Tuesday in the Rangers clubhouse.
Outfielder Evan Carter, who has missed 31 games with a lumbar sprain, has been taking some swings at the team's complex in Arizona, and Bochy said he should be facing live pitching within a few days. Carter is still considered a rookie even after his debut at the end of last season and his standout play through the playoffs as the Rangers won the World Series.
Right-hander Tyler Mahle was making his first rehab start Tuesday night for Double-A Frisco, about 13 1/2 months after he had Tommy John surgery in May 2023. The Rangers signed him to a $22 million, two-year contract during the winter, knowing he would be out for much of this season. If all goes well, he could join the team in early August.
Jung was voted by fans as the American League starter in last year's All-Star Game when he was a rookie. He said he is trying to keep his legs fresh and in shape. He does some stuff in the batting cage trying to see pitches and can go through some fielding work without throwing the ball.
“Not a whole lot baseball activity-wise,” he said. “I try to do everything I can to stay as ready as I can. ... I'm not really able to do a whole lot right night, so just do everything I can to stay ready in my mind.”
Bochy said Jung had a significant injury, and the manager expressed that he's “not surprised there’s been a hiccup or two along the way.”
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Texas Rangers' Corey Seager (5) walks off the field after being hit by a pitch thrown by Baltimore Orioles pitcher Cade Povich during the fifth inning of a baseball game as manager Bruce Bochy, left, looks on, Saturday, June 29, 2024, in Baltimore. (AP Photo/Terrance Williams)
Texas Rangers' Corey Seager sits on the ground after being hit by a pitch thrown by Baltimore Orioles pitcher Cade Povich during the fifth inning of a baseball game, Saturday, June 29, 2024, in Baltimore. (AP Photo/Terrance Williams)
ROME (AP) — The Vatican has excommunicated its former ambassador to the U.S., Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, after finding him guilty of schism, an inevitable end for the firebrand conservative who became one of Pope Francis ' most ardent critics and a symbol of the polarized Catholic Church in the U.S. and beyond.
The Vatican's doctrine office imposed the penalty after a meeting of its members on Thursday and informed Vigano of its decision Friday, a press statement said.
It cited Vigano's “refusal to recognize and submit to the Supreme Pontiff, his rejection of communion with the members of the church subject to him, and of the legitimacy and magisterial authority of the Second Vatican Council.”
The Vatican excommunication means that Vigano is formally outside the church, and cannot celebrate or receive its sacraments, for having committed one of the gravest crimes in canon law: schism. A schism occurs when someone withdraws submission to the pope or from the communion of Catholics who are subject to him.
It is considered particularly dangerous to the faith because it threatens the unity of the church, which is built on obedience to the pope. And Vigano had created a following of like-minded conservatives and traditionalists over the years as he delved deeper and deeper into conspiracy theories about everything from the coronavirus pandemic, to what he called the “Great Reset” and other fringe ideas.
His dire pronunciations about the current state of the Catholic Church, amplified on Catholic social media sites and by ideologically friendly bloggers on both sides of the Atlantic, were an exaggerated version of the chasm between U.S. ultra-conservatives and Francis. While the Italian prelate enjoyed mainstream support among conservative bishops early in his public career, many distanced themselves as his ideas became more and more extreme.
Vigano, who hasn't been seen publicly since before 2018, knew the schism declaration was coming after the Vatican informed him that it was launching a penal process against him last month. He defiantly called it “an honor” and refused to appear in person or in writing to defend himself.
Vigano issued a lengthy public statement last month justifying his conduct and refusing to recognize the authority of the Vatican's doctrinal office “that claims to judge me, nor of its prefect, nor of the one who appointed him.”
But he didn’t directly respond to the schism declaration Friday on X, his usual forum. About an hour before the Vatican decree was made public, he announced he would be celebrating a Mass on Friday for those who have been supporting him and asked for donations.
Vigano first burst into the public's awareness in 2012, during the first Vatileaks scandal, when Pope Benedict XVI’s butler leaked the pontiff’s private papers to an Italian journalist to try to draw attention to corruption in the Holy See.
In some of the leaked letters Vigano, then the No. 2 in the Vatican City State administration, begged the pope not to be transferred after exposing corruption in the awarding of Vatican contracts that cost the Holy See millions of euros (dollars).
The entreaties didn’t work: By the time the letters were published, Benedict had transferred Vigano to be the Vatican’s ambassador to the United States, certainly a prestigious post but one that took him far from Rome and out of the running to one day be a cardinal.
Vigano reappeared on the scene during Francis’ 2015 visit to the United States, which as nuncio Vigano helped organize. Everything was going fine until Vigano arranged for Kim Davis, a Kentucky clerk at the center of the U.S. gay marriage debate, to be among a small group of people at the Vatican residence to greet Francis.
Davis had risen to prominence for refusing to issue all marriage licenses rather than be compelled to issue licenses to same-sex couples. She became a hero to the conservative right in the U.S., with whom Vigano had increasingly identified during U.S. culture wars over gay marriage and religious liberty issues.
After the visit ended, Davis and her lawyers claimed the encounter with Francis amounted to an affirmation of her cause. The Vatican later turned that claim on its head when it released footage of what it said was the “only” private audience Francis had in Washington: with a small group of people that included a gay couple.
Vigano’s deception in inviting Davis to meet the pope, who had wanted to steer clear of the U.S. culture wars during his visit, appeared to put the two on what would become a collision course that exploded in August 2018.
At the time, the U.S. church was reeling from a new chapter in its clergy sex abuse scandal: One of the most senior U.S. churchmen, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, had been accused of molesting a minor and a Pennsylvania grand jury had issued a devastating investigation into decades of abuse and cover-up.
As Francis was wrapping up a tense visit to Ireland, Vigano published an 11-page screed accusing him and decades of U.S. and Vatican officials of covering for McCarrick. Specifically, Vigano accused Francis of rehabilitating McCarrick from sanctions imposed by Benedict, and called on him to resign.
The accusations were explosive and helped create the greatest crisis of Francis’ then-young pontificate.
Francis quickly authorized an in-house investigation to determine who knew what and when about McCarrick’s penchant for sleeping with his seminarians.
The report, released in 2020, confirmed that a generation of church officials, including Pope John Paul II, had turned a blind eye to McCarrick’s misconduct. It largely spared Francis who eventually defrocked the churchman.
But the report also faulted Vigano for not looking into new claims against McCarrick or enforcing Vatican restrictions on him when specifically ordered to do so by the Vatican.
At that point, Vigano’s claims against Francis began to become more unhinged. He endorsed conspiracy theories about the coronavirus vaccines, appeared at far-right political rallies in the U.S., backed Russia in its war and, eventually, refused to recognize Francis as pope.
FILE - Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, Apostolic Nuncio to the U.S., listens to remarks at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' annual fall meeting in Baltimore, Nov. 16, 2015. The Vatican has excommunicated its former ambassador to the U.S., Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, after finding him guilty of schism, an inevitable end for the firebrand conservative who became one of Pope Francis' most ardent critics. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)
