The Astros have placed starter José Urquidy on the 15-day injured list due to right shoulder discomfort, per a club announcement. Righty Brandon Bielak was recalled from Triple-A Sugar Land to take the vacated active roster spot.
Urquidy departed last night’s start against Philadelphia with the injury. The club announced postgame he was headed for an MRI. Chandler Rome of the Athletic tweets the team has yet to provide any specifics on the imaging, as Urquidy is slated to meet with medical personnel to analyze the results this evening. Regardless, Houston determined they weren’t going to run Urquidy back out there within the next two weeks.
The 28-year-old righty has started six games this year. He owns a 5.20 ERA through 27 2/3 innings. He’s striking hitters out at a below-average 18.7% clip while walking a career-high 8.1% of opponents. While it has been a bland first month, Urquidy has been a reliable mid-rotation control specialist for the bulk of his big league career. He’d allowed fewer than four earned runs per nine in spite of middling strikeout tallies for the past few years, including a 3.94 ERA across a personal-best 164 1/3 innings last season.
Houston is also without Lance McCullers Jr. due to injury. The Astros are down to a four-man starting staff of Framber Valdez, Cristian Javier, Luis Garcia and touted rookie Hunter Brown (who has had an excellent first month in a big league rotation). Bielak has starting experience but manager Dusty Baker said the club will use him out of the bullpen initially (relayed by Mark Berman of Fox 26). Houston has an off day Thursday, allowing them to potentially skip the fifth starter this week while keeping everyone else on regular rest.
And now Garcia is injured too. Wonder who gets called up next.
Is McCullers out long-term?
He shouldn’t be, he had a setback in February and will be out two to three weeks.
Two to three weeks from February?
Texas –
Sorry, I was thinking in my head and typing at the same time. He is another two-three weeks away.
This is great news for the Rangers and Angels! It’s about time Huston experience some injuries like the other teams in the West have been dealing with the past few years!
You act like Carlos Correa and George Springer were never hurt (in the 12 combined seasons in Houston they played two full seasons). Their ace had TJ 2 years ago, shortly after McCullers returned from TJ, only to get injured in the playoffs again. Or acting like Alvarez didn’t miss all of 2020 (outside of two games). They have plenty of injuries over the years. They have just been much better than everyone else in the West.
You’re a sociopath. Injuries are never good news. On any team.
Wonder if it is Forrest Whitley time, most likely JP France.
Happy Birthday, Urquidy!
Getting all giddy & ebullient when a rival team’s starting rotation gets obliterated by injury is not good karma. Even when it happens to the Astros.