Jacob deGrom wanted to stay and is helping keep the Texas Rangers in the playoff chase

ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — Jacob deGrom told the Texas Rangers before the trade deadline that he wanted to stay and believed the team could make the playoffs.

The two-time Cy Young Award winner is doing his part down the stretch, even while pitching through mild groin tightness.

DeGrom struck out eight in five innings Tuesday night as the Rangers opened a series of playoff contenders with a 4-2 win over Boston to stay within a game of AL West-leading Houston with 11 games left. Texas (75-76) remained 1 1/2 games behind Cleveland for the third and final wild card.

“It's what you play this game for. You play to win and go to playoffs, and hopefully win a World Series,” deGrom said. “That’s what we talked about in the spring and set goals. And we’re right here in a playoff race.”

The 38-year-old right-hander (11-9) took his regular turn in the rotation five days after 12 strikeouts and no walks in six scoreless innings of one-hit ball at Seattle — a game Texas lost. That was also when he felt his groin tighten while covering first base on a grounder.

During his bullpen session between starts, deGrom said he threw only 10 fastballs, then added it might have been only nine.

“If it was April, May, that type of deal, I’m not sure I would push it,” manager Skip Schumaker said. “He’s like, I’m ready, give me the ball and I’ll give you everything I have, and he’s doing that. I know he doesn’t feel 100%. He’s not even going to tell me that it’s probably worse than he’s even telling me.”

On his last pitch against the Red Sox, with the bases loaded in the fifth, deGrom got Adley Rutschman on an inning-ending groundout. Boston had two runners after the first two pitches of the inning, on a hit batter and catcher's interference, before a sacrifice bunt and then a two-out walk.

DeGrom retired the first seven batters he faced before Caleb Durbin's solid single in the third. No. 9 batter Nick Sogard followed with a liner over the wall in right field for a homer that got the Red Sox within 4-2, on a pitch deGrom felt went where he wanted it.

“I was like, all right, that’s all they get,” said deGrom, whose groin again tightened on him throwing a fastball in the second inning but didn't get any worse.

“I think it’ll be something we’ll be able to manage and get out there in five days,” he said.

Hours after the trade deadline on Aug. 3, the Rangers dropped a series opener at home to San Francisco. It was their season-high sixth loss in a row. They had just been swept in a three-game series at Houston, going from a half-game division lead to 2 1/2 games behind the Astros.

The Rangers then won four in a row, a streak capped by deGrom's nine strikeouts in five innings against Baltimore in his first start after the deadline, when at least one contending team had inquired about the availability of the pitcher with a full no-trade clause.

“He’s just setting an example to the entire team, just about how he’s going about it right now. Showing up, maybe not feeling 100%, but he’s going to give you his best effort every single time and doing it how he is doing it,” first baseman Jake Burger said. “It’s impressive, and I think that signals to the whole entire team.”

Texas hasn’t reached the playoffs since winning its only World Series title in 2023, which was deGrom’s first season after signing a $185 million, five-year contract in free agency — a deal that has a conditional option for 2028. The Rangers won all six of his starts by the end of that April before elbow surgery that kept him out until the final three games of the 2024 season.

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Texas Rangers pitcher Jacob deGrom talks to home plate umpire Tripp Gibson during the fifth inning of a baseball game against the Boston Red Sox, Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

Texas Rangers starting pitcher Jacob deGrom throws to the Boston Red Sox during the first inning of a baseball game Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

Texas Rangers starting pitcher Jacob deGrom throws to the Boston Red Sox during the first inning of a baseball game Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

Texas Rangers starting pitcher Jacob deGrom throws to the Boston Red Sox during the fourth inning of a baseball game Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A South Korean court has ruled that North Korea should pay the South 44.6 billion won ($32.5 million) for blowing up a joint liaison office between the countries in 2020 as their relations deteriorated following the collapse of nuclear negotiations between Pyongyang and Washington.

Wednesday’s ruling by the Seoul Central District Court was symbolic as South Korea has no clear way to force the North to pay amid a diplomatic breakdown.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in recent years has suspended all meaningful diplomacy with the South and declared it his most hostile enemy while advancing his nuclear weapons program and pursuing closer ties with Moscow and Beijing as part of what he has described as a “new Cold War.”

While there have been cases of individuals suing the North Korean government over human rights abuses and other issues, the liaison office case was the first time the South Korean government sued Pyongyang.

South Korea’s Unification Ministry, which handles affairs related to North Korea, said it respects the court’s ruling and called for a resumption of inter-Korean diplomacy so that “all issues between the South and North can be resolved through dialogue and cooperation.” North Korean state media didn't immediately comment on the ruling.

South Korea filed the suit in 2023, describing the North’s detonation of the building in the North Korean border town of Kaesong as an unlawful and violent act that breached previous agreements between the countries and severely damaged “mutual respect and trust.”

Seoul was then ruled by a conservative government that took a hard line on North Korea’s nuclear and missile development and its military support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, while strengthening security cooperation with the United States and Japan to counter the North Korean threat.

South Korea shifted to a softer tone under current liberal President Lee Jae Myung, who took office last year after his conservative predecessor Yoon Suk Yeol was ousted over his brief imposition of martial law in December 2024. But North Korea has so far ignored Lee’s calls to resume diplomacy.

In June 2020, North Korea used explosives to blow up the South Korean-built liaison office in Kaesong after criticizing Seoul’s failure to stop North Korean defectors from flying anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets across the border using balloons. North Korea shut down the office in January 2020 as it closed its borders over coronavirus concerns, and the building was empty at the time of the detonation.

The building’s destruction was then seen as a calculated display of anger to pressure Seoul over deadlocked nuclear negotiations with Washington. Former liberal South Korean President Moon Jae-in met Kim three times in 2018 while helping set up Kim’s first summit with U.S. President Donald Trump in June that year. However, the diplomacy derailed after the second Kim-Trump summit in 2019 at which the Americans rejected North Korea’s demand for major sanctions relief in exchange for a partial surrender of its nuclear capabilities.

Kim has accelerated the expansion of his nuclear weapons and missile arsenal in recent years while strengthening his ties with Russia, sending thousands of troops and large quantities of weapons to support Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine. Trump has expressed interest in reviving diplomacy with Kim entering his second term and last month ordered the Pentagon to “substantially reduce” a major military exercise with South Korea, citing what he called a “good relationship” with Kim. But Kim’s government has so far dismissed Trump’s dialogue offers and called for Washington to discard its demands for the North’s denuclearization as a precondition for reviving talks.

A photo showing the demolition of an inter-Korean liaison office building in Kaesong, North Korea, is displayed at the Unification Observation Post in Paju, South Korea, near the border with North Korea, Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2026. The sign reads ''The demolition of an inter-Korean liaison office building.'' (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

A photo showing the demolition of an inter-Korean liaison office building in Kaesong, North Korea, is displayed at the Unification Observation Post in Paju, South Korea, near the border with North Korea, Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2026. The signs read ''The demolition of an inter-Korean liaison office building.'' (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

North Korean soldiers stand at a North Korean military guard post near a flying national flag, seen from Paju, South Korea, near the border with North Korea, Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

FILE - This photo provided by the North Korean government shows the demolition of an inter-Korean liaison office building in Kaesong, North Korea on June 16, 2020. Independent journalists were not given access to cover the event depicted in this image distributed by the North Korean government. The content of this image is as provided and cannot be independently verified. Korean language watermark on image as provided by source reads: "KCNA" which is the abbreviation for Korean Central News Agency. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP, File)