Lance McCullers Jr. becomes 17th Astros player to hit injured list
Right-hander Lance McCullers Jr. has a blister on his throwing hand and is back on the injured list for the third time this season, thrusting Houston's rotation further into a state of flux.
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McCullers' stint on the 15-day injured list is backdated to July 20, meaning he is ineligible to be activated prior to the July 31 trade deadline. McCullers, who is making $17 million, is also the 17th Astro to hit the IL. No team has more injured players.
He joins six other Astros starting pitchers on the injured list. Two of them, Ronel Blanco and Hayden Wesneski, already underwent season-ending Tommy John surgery.
Cristian Javier, Spencer Arrighetti and Luis Garcia are all on minor-league rehab assignments, but are not expected to re-join the major-league rotation before the July 31 trade deadline, during which Houston is expected to actively pursue an established starter.
That plan would've stayed in place even if McCullers had remained healthy. After returning in May from a 915-day absence, McCullers owns a 6.90 ERA across his first 11 starts. He has failed to finish five innings during seven of them, putting untenable stress on an already depleted pitching staff.
McCullers collected just eight outs during his last start on Saturday at T-Mobile Park. He surrendered five hits, four earned runs and generated three whiffs from the 28 swings the Seattle Mariners took against him.
Opponents have a 50 percent hard-hit rate against McCullers, who is missing few bats and unable to locate any of his secondary pitches for strikes. McCullers is generating just a 20.3 percent chase rate — league average is 28.4 percent — and teams are whiffing just 24.5 percent of the time against him.
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