Astros: Collin McHugh leaves rehab start after one inning

What’s Mcwrong with Collin McHugh to make him leave early? The Astros need him.

As a Houston Astros fan, you can’t ask for anything more from the starting rotation. Through four games, three of the Astros starters have thrown a quality start. The only one that didn’t was Joe Musgrove, who pitched last night. After getting off to a good start, Musgrove settled for five innings after loading the bases in the sixth. After the dust had settled, one run came in to tie the game, which the Astros eventually lost.

The four starters have combined for a 1.88 ERA in 24 innings, with 17 strikeouts. After last night’s loss, the Astros are 3-1 and set to face the Royals who were just swept by the Twins. Tomorrow, Mike Fiers start has been enhanced with news that broke last night. Fiers was ticketed for the bullpen, but Collin McHugh developed a dead arm in spring training. With McHugh not ready, Fiers gets a chance to impress.

McHugh may need more time.

It was initially assumed that Fiers might get one to two starts with McHugh on the 10-day DL. McHugh had a chance to start in the Fresno Grizzlies opening day game last night. With only a handful of starts in spring training, the Astros were hoping McHugh would throw 85 pitches, via Bryant-Jon Anteola.

Things didn’t go too well for McHugh in the first inning as he loaded the bases but only allowed three runs to score. McHugh threw 27 pitches in the first inning. The Grizzlies offense exploded for five runs, ignited by Teoscar Hernandez‘s three-run shot. McHugh came back out with new life with the lead. But according to the Fresno Bee, while warming up, McHugh called the trainers out.

Any thoughts of him coming back soon evaporated with this outing. The question is, are we waiting for his next start in five days or to hear how bad his injury is? Did he reaggravate the injury or did he injure something else over compensating? At the time of writing, no one has anything concrete.

Next: George Springer sets Astros nation abuzz with his walk-off homer

McHugh was supposed to be the Astros third pitcher in the rotation. While the staff looks good, the team needs a healthy McHugh. Even though he had a down year, he still can help the team win this year. More to come as it is reported.

***Stats from Baseball-Reference***