Is the Houston Astros pitching staff in trouble due to injuries?

While the Houston Astros lineup is beginning to get healthy with Michael Brantley and Jose Altuve soon to join the lineup in the coming weeks, the pitching staff, particularly the starting pitchers are starting to drop like flies from injuries. It now begs the question, is the Houston Astros pitching staff in trouble due to injuries?

As Astros fans, we’ve been entirely too blessed with the amount of pitching depth that seemingly comes from nowhere when either Lance McCullers Jr. or Justin Verlander went down with an injury. Framber Valdez, Luis Garcia, and José Urquidy were all pitchers that we were unsure of, until they lit up opposing teams for multiple seasons now.

As you can see on Apollo’s health report presented by Sweetgreen, the Astros are officially down three starting pitchers out of their typical six guys. Not great! There’s no timetable for Garcia, and who really knows how long it’ll take Urquidy to recover because shoulder inflammation is always wishy washy. Meanwhile we haven’t even gotten to see McCullers Jr. pitch yet which makes my heart sad, but we know we’ll get the best version of him whenever he comes back.

During Spring Training, Dez predicted that Forrest Whitley would be joining the staff this season, and that he would win five games this year. That’s quite the prediction for a guy that Astros fans have been waiting to see in the Majors for what seems like five seasons now. The Astros may actually have to consider bringing Whitley up or maybe someone like J.P. France. I thoroughly love France because he pitched for my beloved Mississippi State Bulldogs in 2018 during their magical run to Omaha.

The Astros have arms in the waiting, but they aren’t battle tested like everyone else in the starting rotation. Even Hunter Brown has proved that he’s a DUDE, and we’ve only seen him pitch in the majors for a total of basically two months. The Houston Astros pitching staff has been in trouble due to injuries before, so I have faith that they’ll be able to make it out of these next few months.

They may have to slug their way out of games, but with the death lineup in full effect in the coming weeks, that will be significantly easier. Is the Houston Astros pitching staff in trouble due to injuries? Maybe, but I’ve got faith in the organization to steady the ship.