Astros pitcher suffers forearm strain, will open season on injured list

Astros right-hander Jose Urquidy has been diagnosed with a strained muscle in his forearm and will open the season on the injured list, manager Joe Espada announced to the Astros beat this morning (X link via Chandler Rome of The Athletic). Rome notes that Espada was asked specifically about Urquidy’s ulnar collateral ligament but replied that the only information he’s received is that there’s a forearm strain. Urquidy, who pulled himself from his most recent spring start due to elbow pain and underwent an MRI, will be shut down from throwing for the next few days.

Urquidy joins Justin Verlander (shoulder discomfort), Luis Garcia Jr. (Tommy John surgery last May) and Lance McCullers Jr. (flexor surgery last June) as Astros starters on the injured list to begin the season. Left-hander Framber Valdez has already been named the Opening Day starter, and he’ll likely be joined on the starting staff by righties Cristian Javier, Hunter Brown, Ronel Blanco and J.P. France.

Injuries have mounted for the Astros in spring training, and they’ll now have nearly an entire MLB rotation (and a good one, at that) on their 15-day IL to open the year. The ’Stros also announced early in camp that setup man Kendall Graveman would miss the season due to shoulder surgery — a move that prompted them to pivot and sign Josh Hader to a five-year contract in free agency.

There’s been talk of a similar late grab on the rotation side of things. As recently as Friday, the ’Stros were reported to be in “serious” pursuit of two-time Cy Young winner Blake Snell, but there’s been some doubt cast on the team’s willingness to pay Snell a $30M annual salary. Doing so would push Houston into the third tier of luxury penalization, resulting in just over $12M of taxes (on top of Snell’s actual salary). It’d also cause Houston’s top pick in next year’s draft to drop by 10 places and would require the Astros to forfeit their second-highest pick (currently in the third round, as they forfeited their second-rounder to sign Hader) as well as $500K of space from next year’s bonus pool for international amateur free agency.

For Urquidy, this will mark the third time in four seasons he’ll head to the injured list. In 2021, a pair of shoulder injuries limited him to 20 starts and 107 innings. He was healthy enough to avoid the IL entirely and pitch in 29 games (28 starts) for Houston in 2022, but last year saw a return of some shoulder pain. Urquidy was placed on the injured list on May 1 and didn’t return until Aug. 6, ultimately pitching just 63 innings on the year.

When he’s healthy, there’s little doubt Urquidy is a quality big league pitcher. He was dinged for a 5.29 ERA in last year’s relatively small sample and likely wasn’t pitching at 100% prior to that IL stint, but he’s posted a sub-4.00 ERA in every other season of his career. In 405 big league innings, Urquidy has a solid 3.98 earned run average with a below-average 19.6% strikeout rate but a very strong 5.8% walk rate. As an undersized righty (6’0″) with fly-ball tendencies and an average fastball, he’s susceptible to home runs  (1.49 HR/9). But Urquidy’s plus changeup has helped him neutralize lefties throughout his career, holding them to an awful  .203/.255/.364 slash.

It’s not yet clear how long Urquidy will spend on the shelf, but pairing his absence with that of Verlander —  plus the previously known season-opening IL stints for Garcia and McCullers — has already begun to test the Astros’ rotation depth. Add in that right-hander Shawn Dubin has yet to pitch this spring due to shoulder discomfort of his own, and Houston is all the more thin in that department. Swingman Brandon Bielak would probably be the next man up in the event of a further injury, and after him the Astros don’t even have another healthy starting pitcher on the 40-man roster. Prospect Spencer Arrighetti has been mentioned as a possible option, though he’d need to be selected to the 40-man roster.

As such, even if it’s not Snell or Jordan Montgomery, it seems as though the Astros would make sense for further pitching reinforcements. General manager Dana Brown has gone back and forth on the team’s stance. When announcing that Verlander would open the year on the IL, he suggested the team wasn’t in the market for additional rotation help. Last week, after Urquidy pulled himself after 43 pitches when he’d been slated to throw around 60, Brown reversed course and said he’s “always” in the market for rotation help and even went so far as to acknowledge that so long as Snell remained on the market, the Astros would be checking in on his price tag and where things stood.

If not Snell or Montgomery, the market offers a handful of veteran names. Michael Lorenzen and Mike Clevinger are both free agents, as is old friend Zack Greinke. There will also be a handful of options hitting the market late in camp, as veterans who are on non-roster deals with other teams are released or opt out of those deals upon being informed they won’t make the club. There’ll also be some arms available via the DFA market, as teams make corresponding moves to set their 40-man rosters. Some form of rotation addition seems quite plausible for Houston in the next ten days.