finally, in , the orioles traded him to the texas rangers during spring training for ramon nivar. he was able to play briefly in the major leagues for texas, but as a one-out middle reliever rather than a starter. he accumulated an era of 9.95 over seven games and was then sent down to the triple-a oklahoma redhawks. in july 2005, he had his second tommy john surgery and missed the rest of the 2005 season. while attempting to come back from that surgery, he retore his ulnar collateral ligament and had to have a third tommy john surgery on his left elbow.