The Houston Astros have been bitten by the injury bug, especially in the pitching department.
Houston has already seen Hunter Brown and Cristian Javier go to the 15-day IL early in the season.
And it is greatly affecting the team. The Astros are dead last in team ERA with an eye-popping 6.32 ERA.
They just lost another pitcher.
Astros starter Tatsuya Imai is dealing with a “tired arm”, according to The Athletic’s Chandler Rome.
Imai will return to Houston for further evaluation, per MLB.com’s Brian McTaggart.
This is ominous news for the highly touted international signing.
More on Imai of the Houston Astros
The Astros signed Imai to a three-year, $54 million contract during the offseason, where he can opt out after each of the first two seasons.
He earned this contract after an excellent career with the Saitama Seibu Lions of the NPB in Japan.
Imai’s fastball averages in the mid-90’s, and he has a slider that has the ability to generate lots of whiffs.
However, his major league career has gotten off to a less-than-desirable start. In three games, Imai has pitched just 8.2 innings, giving up seven runs.
He has recorded 13 strikeouts and 11 walks, horrible numbers for even a tiny sample size.
While his performance could be due to several factors, including his arm fatigue, it’s hard to see many positives early on.
However, he may be getting unlucky. According to Baseball Savant, his expected batting average is just .182, good for the 87th percentile.
He is also not generating hard contact, with an average exit velocity of just 85.8 mph. His ground-ball rate is also elite at 57.9%.
While he is generating high whiff rates, his walk percentage is the worst in baseball at 25%.
Imai, 27, needs to obviously work on his command. His stuff clearly isn’t the issue.
What Does Imai’s Injury Mean for the Team?
With Brown and Javier out for an undetermined period of time, the Astros’ rotation depth was already suffering.
Now that Imai could be shut down for the foreseeable future, the Astros could be in big trouble.
While their pitching has been horrible, Houston’s bats are keeping them in games. They have scored an American League-leading 85 runs.
However, they’ve given up 87 runs, tops in the major leagues. This has led to an unexpected 6-8 record for Houston, as they sit at fourth in the division.
Without Imai, the Astros rotation will be left with Mike Burrows and Lance McCullers Jr. being the only starters from the Opening Day rotation not injured.
This leaves Houston in severe jeopardy. Cody Bolton, J.P. France, Ryan Weiss, AJ Blubaugh and Jason Alexander are other starting candidates either already on the major league roster or in Triple-A.
These aren’t exactly inspiring names to fill three spots in a rotation, even if Brown, Javier and Imai come back quickly.
The Astros may have to scour the free-agent market for starters still available, like Lucas Giolito, or even the trade market.
Either way, this is a horrible situation for Houston to be in this early in the season, as they hope that Imai’s injury isn’t too serious.
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