April didn’t go very well for the Texas Rangers. Their closer imploded, their offense sputtered, Adrian Beltre couldn’t get healthy, and the Astros started off red hot, opening a sizable early lead in the AL West race. Well, today, things got even worse, as Cole Hamels was found to have a strained oblique that is going to put him on the shelf until at least July.

Cole Hamels has been placed on 10 day DL with right oblique strain that will sideline him about 8 weeks.

— Evan Grant (@Evan_P_Grant) May 3, 2017

Before this news came down, our forecasts already weren’t that optimistic about Texas’ chances this year. Their 11-16 start meant we had them finishing 78-84, so they’d need to win roughly 10 more games than projected over the rest of the season to put themselves in legitimate Wild Card contention. Our playoff odds calculation put the chances of that happening at about 10%, with another 3% chance they’d get hot enough to catch the Astros and win the division. Their 13% playoff odds put them ahead of only the A’s, Twins, Royals, and White Sox in the AL.

Take Hamels out of the picture for a couple of months, with the team already lacking rotation depth, and those odds probably sink under 10%. It’s not definitively time to throw in the towel, but this certainly hurts the Rangers chances of turning things around before they’ll have to make a decision on Yu Darvish in July. An impending free agent, if the Rangers aren’t sure they can re-sign him, they’d probably have to trade him, given the return he’d command. To avoid having to make a decision on Darvish, Texas was going to have to get hot in May and June, but now they’ll have to do that without their other good starting pitcher.

One of the main stories of 2017 is how many expected contenders might end up as sellers this summer. The Royals, Blue Jays, and Giants are all staring at significant hills to overcome to get back in the race, and now they might be joined by the Rangers in putting some impact talent in play at the trade deadline.