Astros didn't add pitching at the deadline; their latest loss underscores that risk

New York Times

8 hours ago

MIAMI — They are going to need everyone, any available arm within a Houston Astros organization starved for pitching stability. They sought some of it during the trade deadline, only to be spooked by the steep cost of acquiring Dylan Cease or anyone of his ability.
'The asking prices were too high,' general manager Dana Brown acknowledged in the immediate aftermath, 'and we know that we have a bunch of starters coming back.'
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The first of them emerged from loanDepot Park's visiting clubhouse at 4:21 p.m. ET on Wednesday afternoon.
Spencer Arrighetti watched each of the 106 games a freak accident caused him to miss, a miserable four-month existence for the man himself and a pitching staff he could not help.
Seven weeks into Arrighetti's absence, two of his rotation mates underwent season-ending Tommy John surgery. Two others, Cristian Javier and Luis Garcia, opened the season recovering from the reconstructive elbow operation. Neither were scheduled to re-join the Astros' rotation until after the All-Star break.
Fill-ins far exceeded expectations to keep the Astros afloat atop the American League West, but sustainability concerns persisted. The past eight weeks substantiated them. Houston's rotation awoke on Wednesday with a 4.38 ERA since June 15.
Of the 10 teams with a higher one in that span, only the New York Mets entered play on Wednesday in possession of a playoff spot. Acquiring leverage relievers Gregory Santos, Ryan Helsley and Tyler Rogers at the trade deadline should minimize the Mets' malaise, shortening games to take pressure off of the rotation.
Brown and his baseball operations team opted against a similar strategy. They augmented Houston's lineup with Jesús Sánchez, struck a sentimental salary dump of Carlos Correa and called their cavalry of rehabbing pitchers sufficient. Pressure for them to perform is obvious.
'If anything,' Arrighetti said on Tuesday, 'it's internal pressure and it's a standard I hold myself to to make sure those guys are going to be put in the best spots and I'm just giving the team a chance to win every time I take the ball.'
On Wednesday, he did not.
Arrighetti allowed 11 hits, collected 11 outs and surrendered five earned runs during a 6-4 loss against the Miami Marlins. Some underlying metrics painted a more favorable portrait than those numbers may indicate, but Arrighetti still appeared every bit a pitcher making his first major-league start in 123 days.
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'Just a little rusty there,' manager Joe Espada said.
That is fine for a nondescript day in May, when enough of a runway exists for someone like Arrighetti to re-acclimate after such a long absence. That luxury no longer exists. Forty-seven regular-season games remain, a stretch in which the Astros have accepted there could be circumstances like this.
Whether they're equipped to overcome them is a legitimate question. Houston's loss on Wednesday dropped its division lead to 2 1/2 games over the surging Seattle Mariners. With two more wins against the woebegone Chicago White Sox, Seattle could sneak to within 1 1/2 games before the Astros open a weekend series at Yankee Stadium on Friday.
If it occurs, cliches, calls for patience or proclaiming these are 'growing pains' will fall on deaf ears.
'I wouldn't call it 'rusty' necessarily, just growing pains of getting back out on the mound,' Arrighetti said. 'Obviously, that was only my fourth game since getting hurt. Rehab starts are good for building stuff up but not necessarily for putting a game plan together … I wouldn't call it rust, just more of a growing pain thing.'
Failing to fortify the pitching staff with any external additions will magnify each start Arrighetti, Javier or Garcia may make across the next two months. Anything Lance McCullers Jr. can contribute would be appreciated, too, but his season has already demonstrated the danger in expecting excellence from pitchers returning from significant injuries.
Garcia has not pitched in a major-league game in 27 months. His recovery from Tommy John surgery has included a slew of setbacks and has shortened his arm slot on the mound. After his most recent rehab start, Garcia told MLB.com 'I think I'm not moving quite as explosively as I was in the past,' and 'I'm feeling a little weird.'
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Javier's comeback from Tommy John has been more linear. He underwent the operation last June and hasn't pitched in a major-league game since May 21, 2024. Javier has made five minor-league rehab starts with scattered results. His command is iffy. So is his ability to miss bats with his disappearing fastball.
All of it is to be expected. The Astros know firsthand. Their lineup lit up Sandy Alcantara on Monday night in Miami, inflating his ERA to 6.44 across 116 innings this season — his first since undergoing Tommy John surgery on Oct. 6, 2023.
Alcantara returned to the mound after a 17-month recovery. On Wednesday, Espada indicated that Javier's next start could be as part of Houston's major-league rotation. If it is, Javier will have had 14 months between major-league outings. Perhaps Javier prospers in ways Alcantara couldn't. Houston has gambled its entire season in hopes that he will.
Arrighetti, at least, only missed four months. He made two starts in April and didn't require the same reconstructive surgery his teammates underwent. That alone should inspire more hope than any of Javier, Garcia or McCullers. Wednesday still showed a gap that remains.
'I want to give the team more of a chance,' Arrighetti said. 'Obviously it's not how I drew it up. I feel like I made some pretty good pitches for the most part. Obviously, I had some mistakes in there, some weird baseball stuff. It just is what it is.'
Four of the 11 hits Arrighetti allowed on Wednesday did not leave the infield. Six of them were struck softer than 83 mph, but seven other batted balls were hit harder than 98 mph. Five of those were hits and another was a sacrifice fly. Poor luck plagued him, but ascribing all of this outing to misfortune is misguided.
During a three-run first, though, Gold Glover Mauricio Dubón did not keep Liam Hicks' shift-beating groundball on the infield. It trickled through for a single. Two batters later, Sánchez seemed unsure of the spin on a sinking line drive from Jakob Marsee.
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In lieu of diving, Sánchez allowed the baseball to bounce in front of him, a fifth single of Arrighetti's frustrating first inning. When it ended, Arrighetti yelled into his glove before exiting the mound.
'I thought he was spinning the ball well and the shape of his pitches were pretty good,' Espada said. 'Just missed where they were able to get some barrel on it.'
Miami swung 45 times against the 86 pitches Arrighetti threw. Sixteen of them were whiffs. Arrighetti has only had three major-league starts where he's generated more. Nothing he did on Wednesday felt more important. At his best, Arrighetti is a bat-missing machine who struck out 10.6 per nine as a rookie.
Is there enough time for him to harness that form?
'He threw the ball well enough (to) where I felt encouraged,' Espada said. 'Like, OK, he's healthy. His next outing is going to be better.'
Houston has no choice but to hope it is.
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