Astros right-hander J.P. France is dealing with a shoulder injury and is going to be out “a while,” per reporting from Chandler Rome of The Athletic. Rome adds in a post on X that manager Joe Espada told SportsTalk 790 that France has been shut down with “right shoulder soreness” and will be sent for more testing. The righty dealt with a shoulder issue during Spring Training but got over it in time to make the Opening Day roster, making five starts before being optioned to Triple-A at the end of April.
An injury to a starter on optional assignment wouldn’t always be a big deal, but there are a few reasons why it would be concerning for the Astros right now. The club is out to a rough 12-22 start, making it feel like their season is in peril. Houston has a very strong track record in the recent past and it’s still early here in 2024, but they will need a run of victories at some point to gain ground in the playoff race.
On top of that, the next part of their schedule is going to be tough. Today marks the start of a period where they play 29 games in 30 days, a challenging enough stretch that the club is likely to go with a six-man rotation.
The starting staff has been a juggling act all year. They knew coming into the season that Lance McCullers Jr. and Luis Garcia would be missing significant time as each underwent elbow surgery last year. On top of that, each of Justin Verlander, Framber Valdez, Cristian Javier and José Urquidy have spent time on the injured list.
Verlander and Valdez have since returned and are currently active. The other three rotation spots are currently held by Ronel Blanco, Hunter Brown and Spencer Arrighetti. Blanco has pitched very well, even throwing a no-hitter against the Blue Jays last month, but Brown and Arrighetti have faced significant struggles. Brown has an 8.89 earned run average through his seven starts while Arrighetti has a mark of 8.27 through his four outings.
Javier is expected to be activated from the IL at some point in the near future, perhaps as soon as this weekend, to give the club six starters. France could have perhaps been an option to replace Brown or Arrighetti but this injury could force the Astros to stick with those two.
Urquidy is nearing a rehab assignment but would likely need at least a few weeks to build up since he’s missed the entire season so far. Pitchers like Brandon Bielak and Shawn Dubin have some starting experience but are currently in the big league bullpen and not stretched out. Blair Henley is on the 40-man but his one major league start was disastrous, allowing five earned runs while recording just one out, while his Triple-A numbers aren’t great either.
One surprising name that could be entering the mix is A.J. Blubaugh, as Rome reports that the right-hander has “opened eyes” after his recent promotion to Triple-A. A seventh-round pick from the 2022 draft, Blubaugh has recently made five Triple-A starts with a 4.43 ERA, 24.2% strikeout rate and 10.1% walk rate. He’s not currently on the 40-man roster.
How the club decides to tackle their rotation challenges will be an interesting situation to monitor over the next month as they navigate this tricky patch of their schedule. For France personally, it would be quite unfortunate timing for him if the injury turns out to be significant, beyond the obvious frustrations. Since he was optioned to the minors a few weeks ago, he’s not currently accruing major league pay or service time.
France came into 2024 with 149 days of service time, just 23 shy of the 172 required for a full year. He spent 28 days on the active roster to start this season before getting optioned, meaning he barely eclipsed that one-year line. But if he were to languish in the minors while injured for a while, it would hurt his chances of reaching arbitration and free agency in the future. If he is set to miss significant time and the Astros want to use his 40-man roster spot, they could recall him and place him on the major league 60-day injured list, which would start his service clock running again.
Here come the cult Bauer lovers and cult Bauer haters.
In all honesty the Astros are the only team he makes sense on. They need something to give them a boost, their pitching staff is horrendous and injured beyond belief, and everyone already boos them to no end. Why not?! Most hated pitcher on the most hated team, sounds like a great fit to me!
Depends how you define most hated. Keith olbermann types may hate him, but Houston isn’t los Angeles
Would he help enough? My point, is/has this team just gotten old all at the same time? Do they have anything at Sugarland (and lower) coming up in the future?
What meant by Sugarland, is watched a cpl games vs El Paso his past weekend they played on milb.tv. Sure, don’t claim to know squat regarding the ‘stros system. What I saw was a few names remember recycled thru other teams, guys throwing 90-91. Bats didn’t impress.
Just 2 games, not much but was curious to se what houston may have at AAA being off to such a bad start 1/5th thru.
Your questions are legit johnsilver. Your observation of them getting old is fair game. Along these lines, payroll looks awfully bloated too. Maybe start selling off pieces now while there is value? Don’t wait until next year!
Sign Bauer!
No.
Would you rather Blair Henley pitch again? lol they don’t exactly have anyone else to throw out there my man.
Give me Zack Grienke and Rich Hill over Trevor Bauer.
Sign Angel Sanchez. He’s the best pitcher in the Mexican league with an ERA almost a full run better than Bauer.
Before signing any player ask yourself this: Could he beat the Dodgers? if the answer is no it’s pointless to sign him.
My point wasn’t to actually sign Angel Sanchez. It was to illustrate that there are a bunch of pitchers who dominate the mexican leagues who have no business being signed by an MLB team.
Idiot alert
Addition by subtraction.
Let’s see them cheat their way out of this one
Okay so they banged on garbage cans to signal what pitch was coming. So just because you know what pitch is coming doesn’t mean it’s an automatic hit. Going thru the video tape, does anybody remember how many hits they may have gotten because of cheating? Is it possible they cheated but it didn’t actually help them at all?
You’ve literally Eliminated 100% of the guess work. How could you say they did not gain a significant advantage because of that
Still have to execute. But I need to go back to the tapes where you can hear the thumping on the telecast and then see if it corresponds to anything. (Because wouldn’t that be silly and pathetic to sink to that level of cheating and yet it didn’t really help the team win at all.)
Dude, they were better on the road in 2017 than at home.
Hopefully Banned
Ignorant’s commitment to the bit here is top notch.
We could just call it a thought exercise. (Hey I’m a Mariners fan for the record, so it’s not like I’m trying to exonerate them.)