It just won't be with the Rangers, who passed on Lewis to sign free-agent starters Andrew Cashner and Tyson Ross.
"Saying goodbye after all this time seems an impossible task," Lewis said in a statement he released on Tuesday. "I'm filled with so many emotions. Texas has turned into our second home and the people we have met over here have turned from friends to family. But goodbyes are inevitable and this is mine."
Lewis' absence from the Rangers ends a remarkable story for a former first-round Draft pick in 1999 who seemed headed for oblivion until he resurrected his career in 2008-09 while pitching for the Hiroshima Carp in Japan.