Smith goes on IL with sore elbow

BOSTON — The Astros placed reliever Joe Smith on the injured list with right elbow soreness Wednesday, another setback for a sidearmer mired in a miserable start to his season.

Smith’s soreness had been “off and on,” according to manager Dusty Baker, who said the discomfort began to limit Smith from getting loose in the bullpen or pitch on back-to-back days. The team recalled Brandon Bielak from Class AAA Sugar Land to take Smith’s spot on the active roster.

“Joe doesn’t say much. He’s such a great team man and teammate,” Baker said Wednesday. “He was just finally getting himself back together, and it just made it tough to get up and down in the bullpen. It put a little bit of pressure on the rest of the guys down there, and he just felt like he didn’t want to put that pressure on him and it was time for him to get right.”

Baker did not answer whether Smith got an MRI, and Smith was not made available for comment. Houston had preseason expectations that Smith would handle high-leverage innings for its largely inexperienced bullpen.

Smith responded with a 1.79 WHIP and 6.23 ERA during his first 22 appearances, relegating him to mop-up duty and thinning the Astros’ depth. Smith did not pitch during the 60-game season in 2020 while tending to his ill mother, and he acknowledged the layoff affected him more drastically than he envisioned.

Smith pitched two scoreless innings in June but had not appeared in a game since Saturday.

Arm issue doesn’t worry McCullers

Lance McCullers Jr. has “zero concern” over his long-term arm health in advance of his minor league rehab assignment with the Class AAA Sugar Land Skeeters on Thursday.

McCullers said he is scheduled to pitch four innings or 60-65 pitches against the Round Rock Express at Constellation Field. Presuming he emerges from the appearance unscathed, McCullers said it will be his only minor league rehab assignment before rejoining Houston’s rotation.

“I feel really ready to be back,” McCullers said Wednesday. “I was pushing for no rehab start, but here we are, and I’m expecting it to be my only one.”

The Astros placed McCullers on the injured list May 23 with right shoulder discomfort. Speaking for the first time since, McCullers described the injury as inflammation and fluid in his bursa sac.

“It wasn’t anything very serious. We just had to wait for the inflammation to kind of clear,” McCullers said. “I just needed a couple days, and we just started building up from there. Everything’s been pretty much 100 percent from the get-go.”

If McCullers remains on a regular starter’s routine, he could return to the Astros’ rotation as soon as June 15 against the Texas Rangers. He posted a 2.96 ERA in his first 512⁄3 innings this season.

“It kind of sucks when you’re going like that to have a little rehab stint, but it’ll be nice to just be back out there,” McCullers said. “I want to throw strikes, get my pitches going again and get back with the team.”

Boston fan abuse troubling to Cora

Red Sox manager Alex Cora said it was “tough to swallow” the cacophony of jeers toward Jose Altuve and the rest of the 2017 Astros during Tuesday night’s game at Fenway Park.

“When I got home, I thought about it. I was like, ‘Wow, it was a tough night,’ ” Cora said before Wednesday’s game. “Not only on the field. That part, whatever, I can deal with that. We will lose another game 7-1. The fact that they were booed like that — that hit me, too.”

Altuve, Alex Bregman and Carlos Correa heard a deluge of boos and vitriol throughout the game — Houston’s first at Fenway since the unearthing of a sign-stealing scheme during the 2017 season.

Major League Baseball cast Cora, then the team’s bench coach, as a centerpiece of the scandal, describing the scheme as “with the exception of Cora, player-driven and player-executed.” The Red Sox parted ways with Cora after the league’s investigation in January 2020 but rehired him this past winter. Cora’s 2018 Red Sox team also broke sign-stealing rules, but not to the 2017 Astros’ egregious level.

“When they were booing them and they were screaming at Jose, I felt it too. I’ve got to be honest,” Cora told Boston radio station WEEI.