Astros broadcast just dropped a huge hint about this pitcher's long-term prognosis

Eric Cole

Houston Astros v Seattle Mariners / Steph Chambers/GettyImages

When the Houston Astros acquired Hayden Wesneski from the Chicago Cubs in the Kyle Tucker trade, the hope was that he would blossom into at least a solid back of the rotation starter. Through his first six starts in an Astros uniform, that's pretty much exactly what he was before the injury bug bit. Now it sounds like he could be dealing with more than just a minor issue.

Wesneski last pitched on May 6 and has been dealing with an elbow issue. There was a chance that the injury was minor, but Houston has been so cagey with updates, which seemed to be pretty telling. The last update from Thursday was that the team would know more about Wesneski's status within 36 hours. That certainly seemed ominous.

As it turns out, the Astros broadcast team may have an inside peek behind the curtain. During Houston's game against the Kansas City Royals on Wednesday, Astros play-by-play announcer Todd Kalas, while discussing the team's rotation plans, appeared to reveal that Wesneski is likely done for 2025 the season.

Astros broadcast may have revealed that Hayden Wesneski will be out for the season

Obviously we don't know where Kalas got this information, and it is entirely possible that he is just reading the same tea leaves that we all are. However, with general manager Dana Brown refusing to divulge more details about Wesneski until more test results come in, the odds that his elbow issue is a serious one has gone up exponentially.

To say this would be a discouraging development is an understatement. Spencer Arrighetti should be back relatively soon, and though both Ryan Gusto and Colton Gordon have done their jobs, losing Wesneski would be a major blow. With Luis Garcia suffering a setback and Lance McCullers Jr. struggling mightily in his second start back, the Astros' rotation depth is being put to the test.

Having Hunter Brown and Framber Valdez at the top of the rotation helps, and Ronel Blanco seemed to figure something out in his last start. Given what we've heard, it seems likely that bad news is coming on the Astros' sole rotation addition from last offseason.

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Eric Cole

I started my career writing about baseball covering the Atlanta Braves for SB Nation's Talking Chop back in 2015 which has since been renamed Battery Power. After years of writing for those fine folks, I made the decision to take over as Site Expert at House That Hank Built before becoming a full-time MLB Staff Writer for FanSided in 2023. Along the way, I have been a guest on multiple ESPN radio affiliates as well as 680 The Fan and 92.9 The Game to discuss Braves baseball and especially Braves prospects and was a long-time host on the Battery Power podcast. These days, I continue to write about the Braves as well as covering the Astros, Padres, and Angels with particular expertise with minor league coverage, the MLB Draft, and bashing Anthony Rendon when possible. When I am not writing about or talking about baseball (which is seldom), I am an avid baseball card collector (Maddux and Soroka being my primary personal collections) and I also collect shark teeth. All other sports are mostly dead to me as my Bills have broken my heart too many times.