Elbow shuts down McHugh for 6 weeks
Rotation depth put to test with limited options in bullpen, minors
General manager Jeff Luhnow’s decision to hold off trading for a front-line starting pitcher last offseason will be firmly tested, especially now that the Astros lost No. 3 starter Collin McHugh until at least June.
With McHugh shut down from throwing for the next six weeks because of an elbow injury, the Astros are left with questionable depth behind the five starters in their rotation. Their best internal reinforcements for the time being are bullpen arms with starting backgrounds or unproven prospects who require more seasoning in Class AAA.
McHugh, a fixture in the middle of the Astros’ rotation since 2014, faces an uncertain road ahead. The 29-year-old righthander was diagnosed with a posterior impingement of his right elbow, the team said Saturday. He will be treated non-surgically, so his next six weeks will consist of rest and rehab at Minute Maid Park under the guidance of the Astros’ training staff.
“His shoulder was feeling better. This is something that came up essentially out of the blue,” Luhnow said. “It will be resolved. It’s just a matter of what the path is and how long it takes. But it will be resolved, and hopefully we’ll have him back out there before the end of the first half and he’ll help us down the stretch.”
Asked if McHugh’s injury alters his stance on pursuing external reinforcements, Luhnow responded: “Not at this point.”
“We feel like with our five starters giving us five quality starts right out of the gate, that’s a good place to be,” he said. “We’ll monitor as it goes along, but (Mike) Fiers looked good (Friday) and (Brad) Peacock has been valuable out of the pen. (Chris) Devenski has been good out of the pen. So at this point, we’re going to keep going the way it is until something else happens.” UCL looks OK
An MRI that McHugh underwent Friday revealed no issues with his ulnar collateral ligament, the part of the elbow associated with Tommy John surgery. McHugh said he has never had elbow problems in the past. He isn’t sure if his injury is related in any way to the “dead arm” he experienced coming into spring training or compensations he might have inadvertently made with his arm because of it.
“There are probably a thousand possibilities, truthfully, of how it could have happened,” he said. “It could have just been coincidence. It could have been overcompensating for my shoulder for a while this spring and this offseason. But the fact remains that it happened and it happened when it did. You’ve just got to move on. You’ve got to move forward.”
McHugh said he initially felt discomfort after the first inning of his rehab start Thursday with Class AAA Fresno. He described it as tightness, not unlike what a pitcher might feel on a cold day, he said. Applying heat in the dugout and stretching his arm out through warm-up pitches before the second inning didn’t alleviate the sensation, so he called for a trainer and was removed from the game.
Tests conducted by the Astros’ doctors Friday in Houston revealed inflammation the team hopes will heal with rest. Six weeks from Saturday takes McHugh to May 20, at which point even if all is well he would still need ample time to build up his arm as if he’s going through a spring training.
“I don’t think there’s any measure of relief when you know you’ve got to be shut down for a while,” he said before the Astros’ 7-3 loss to the Kansas City Royals on Saturday night. “As a competitor, obviously, you want to be out there. You want to pitch. You want to help the team.
“But you’ve got to rearrange your mindset a little bit now knowing that helping the team looks a little differently now. It looks like getting stronger, being prepared every day, rehabbing my tail off and making sure that when my time does come around I’m ready to help, whether it’s midseason or whenever.”
McHugh took solace in the fact his UCL is structurally sound. He admitted that as a pitcher whenever you have an elbow problem you start to think about the worst-case scenario. Other alternatives
The Astros, meanwhile, can ill afford another injury in their rotation, which consists of lefthander Dallas Keuchel and righthanders Lance McCullers, Charlie Morton, Joe Musgrove and Fiers, who took McHugh’s spot to begin the season.
Behind those five, their long reliever, Peacock, and jack-of-all-trades in Devenski are among their top reinforcements. The Astros love Devenski in his current Andrew Miller-esque bullpen role but would have to consider him for the rotation in the event of another injury.
Touted prospects Francis Martes and David Paulino represent the Astros’ highest upside depth pieces, but Martes is far from a finished product and Paulino is still working his way back from a bone bruise in his elbow he suffered during spring training. (Paulino has yet to throw off a mound but has resumed playing catch at the Astros’ spring training facility in West Palm Beach, Fla.)
Martes, 21, and considered the industry’s 15th-best prospect by Baseball America, is scheduled to make his Class AAA debut Monday. He’s expected to reach the majors this season, though not until he proves himself in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League. The Astros also have Brady Rodgers in Class AAA, but the 26-year-old righthander has struggled in the past against major league competition.
If the rest of the Astros’ rotation stays intact, it should be good enough to get the team to the July 31 non-waiver trade deadline. Six games into the season, the starters have forged a 1.70 ERA.
With pitchers, however, season-long health is always a big if. The Astros had 11 pitchers make at least one start for them last season. Their depth undoubtedly will be tested again in 2017.
“We knew we’d be challenged at some point. We were hoping it wouldn’t be this early in the season,” Luhnow said. “But the good news is that this is an injury that (McHugh) will come back from, and we’re going to use our depth and that’s why we have it.”