Injury woes continue to plague the Houston Astros, exacerbating a 6-10 start that has themsharing the worst recordin Major League Baseball entering play Monday. The Astros have lost seven consecutive games going into this week’s series with the Seattle Mariners.
Shortstop Jeremy Peña was placed on the 10-day injured list due to a Grade 1 right hamstring strain. Pitcher Tatsuya Imai, due to right arm fatigue, is joining several Astros starting pitchers on the IL.
Peña leftSaturday’s 8-7 lossto the Mariners in the fourth inning due to what was described as tightness at the back of his right knee. He underwent an imaging exam on Sunday to determine the severity of the injury, and a mild strain was discovered.
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After batting 1-for-3 on Saturday, Peña’s triple-slash line is .256/.304/.349 with four extra-base hits in 46 plate appearances. While it’s early in the season and Peña has played in only 10 games, those numbers are a notable decline from the .304 batting average and .840 OPS he posted last year.
However, his preparations in the spring were sidetracked bya fractured right ring fingerthat prevented him from playing for the Dominican Republic in the World Baseball Classic.
The 28-year-old was limited to 125 games last seasondue to a fractured rib(sustained when he was hit by a pitch) and left oblique injuries.
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Tatsuya Imai is third Astros starting pitcher to go on IL
The Astros feared that an IL stint for Imai was imminent when he wassent back to Houstonon Saturday to evaluate what the team called “right arm fatigue.”
Houston has already placed starting pitchers Hunter Brown and Cristian Javier on the injured list, both due to strained right shoulders. Brown is expectedto be out until May, while Javier will be reevaluated in two weeks. Beginning this past Friday, the Astros play 13 straight games without a day off, putting even more pressure on an undermanned pitching staff.
Imai faced the Mariners on Friday for his third start of the season but lasted only one-third of an inning. Facing eight batters, the right-hander allowed three runs on one hit and four walks inan eventual 9-6 defeat. He threw only 17 of his 37 pitches for strikes in the outing.
Following the game,Imai complainedof the hard mound at T-Mobile Park and the cooler weather than he’s accustomed to. The temperature was 64 degrees at first pitch in Seattle.
In his three starts, the 27-year-old has walked 11 batters and struck out 13 in 8 1/3 innings. He has allowed seven runs on seven hits, resulting in a 7.27 ERA. The Astros were hoping for better production from a pitcher signed to a three-year contract that couldpay him up to $63 million.
However, Imai showed what he was capable of in his second start,throwing 5 2/3 scoreless inningsagainst the Athletics with nine strikeouts.
During his eight seasons pitching for the Seibu Lions in Nippon Professional Baseball, Imai compiled a 3.15 ERA and 58-45 record in 159 appearances with a strikeout rate of 8.5 per nine innings. But his walk rate of 4.4 hinted at the concerns that have manifested thus far in his MLB career.
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