Rangers' Jake Burger Wears Red Contact Lenses to Help with Darkness in Trending MLB Video

Jake Burger is going full anime.

OK, not really, but the Texas Rangers slugger is rocking red contact lenses at darker ballparks to help him see better:

Perhaps it's working. The 29-year-old first baseman is hitting .333 to start the season with two homers, six RBI, five runs and a .955 OPS to start the 2026 season.

Burger had a career year in 2023, hitting 34 homers, and followed that up with 29 in 2024, though injuries limited him to 103 games last season. It was a disappointing season overall, as he finished with 16 homers and a .687 OPS and was even briefly demoted to Triple-A early in the season.

"I was just trying to do too much," he told reporters in February. "You know, trying to make up for lost time, where it's like, damn, I was just on the IL for an oblique, then it's a quad. I really wanted to at least try and contribute 20 home runs, so maybe it's trying to do too much where it kind of puts you in a worse position."

That led Burger to make mechanical changes this offseason, but also led to him changing his mentality once the game begins.

"I'm gonna go in there, work on my approach, whatever that may be against the pitcher that I'm facing that day, and then take that out to the field," he said. "I feel like us, as hitters, sometimes, when you're struggling and trying to do too much, you jumble up the mechanics with the approach. Those mechanics thoughts might come to you in the middle of an at- bat, and you've lost at that point. So I'm trying to separate those two."

But perhaps some new contact lenses will help as well.