Ryan Rua

Rua was drafted by the Texas Rangers in the 17th round of the 2011 Major League Baseball draft out of NCAA Division II Lake Erie College.^[1] He was the first player in school history to be drafted. He made his professional debut for the Arizona League Rangers that year and also played for the Spokane Indians. In 52 games, he hit .303./.376/.484 with four home runs. He returned to Spokane in 2012 and hit .293/.368/.432 with seven home runs in 74 games. During his time in the minor leagues, Rua primarily played third base and second base.

Rua started 2013 with the Hickory Crawdads.^[2] At the end of June he was leading the entire minor leagues in homers.^[3] On August 9, he was promoted to the Double-A Frisco RoughRiders.^[4]^[5] He finished the year hitting .247/.347/.525 with 32 home runs in 127 games.

He started the 2014 season back with Frisco. Rua was called up to the big leagues for the first time on August 29, 2014 and made his debut the same day at first base, collecting his first hit on an infield single. Rua finished his debut going 1-for-5 with a run scored. On September 21, 2014, Rua hit his first career homer, a solo shot off Angels' closer Huston Street, sending the Rangers to a 2-1 victory.

On Opening Day 2015, Rua had the only base hit for the Rangers as they fell to Oakland 8-0. On July 30, 2015, Rua hit an inside-the-park home run against the New York Yankees in the bottom of the fourth inning, tying the game 5-5 (the Rangers went on to win 7-6 after a walk-off from Josh Hamilton).

Before Opening Day 2016, Rua was informed he had made the Opening Day roster. He started out as a bench player, but as the end of April progressed, manager Jeff Banister began to trust Rua more and more as an every day player. When center fielder Delino DeShields was sent down to Triple-A on May 13, Ian Desmond moved to center and Rua received the left field job. On May 10, 2016 he hit a 3-run home run in the 8th inning against the Chicago White Sox to cap the biggest Rangers' comeback since 2012 (13-11). But Rua began to struggle again and by the end of May he had lost his job to Nomar Mazara.

References

External links

Career statistics and player information from MLB, or ESPN, or Baseball-Reference, or Fangraphs, or The Baseball Cube, or Baseball-Reference (Minors)
Lake Erie College Storm bio
Ryan Rua on Twitter
Ryan Rua on Instagram

Texas Rangers current roster

Active roster	1 Elvis Andrus 3 Delino DeShields 11 Yu Darvish 12 Rougned Odor 13 Joey Gallo 14 Carlos Gómez 16 Ryan Rua 17 Shin-Soo Choo 19 Jurickson Profar 21 Chi Chi Gonzalez 21 Jeremy Jeffress 22 Nick Martinez 25 Jonathan Lucroy 29 Adrián Beltré 30 Nomar Mazara 33 Martín Pérez 35 Cole Hamels 39 Darío Álvarez 41 Jake Diekman 43 Tony Barnette 47 Sam Dyson 50 Keone Kela 51 Matt Bush 52 Tanner Scheppers 54 Andrew Cashner 56 Andrew Faulkner 58 Alex Claudio 59 Connor Sadzeck 61 Robinson Chirinos 62 José Leclerc 63 Brett Nicholas 64 A. J. Griffin 65 Yohander Méndez 68 Hanser Alberto 84 Prince Fielder -- Ronald Guzmán -- Mike Hauschild -- Tyrell Jenkins -- Drew Robinson -- Tyler Wagner

Coaching staff	Manager 28 Jeff Banister Bench 24 Steve Buechele First base 4 Héctor Ortiz Third base 27 Tony Beasley Hitting 9 Anthony Iapoce Assistant hitting 0 Justin Mashore Pitching 46 Doug Brocail Bullpen 40 Brad Holman Bullpen catcher 66 Josh Frasier Field -- Josh Bonifay

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