Astros may need to turn to an under-the-radar acquisition sooner than anyone thought

The Houston Astros' pitching staff as a whole has been a disaster. The starting rotation is battered and ineffective, and the bullpen, which at times last year was a strength, has the second-worst ERA in the league with a 5.99 mark through April 19. One of the lone bright spots among the relief corps, however, has been Kai-Wei Teng.

Coming over in a minor trade with the San Francisco Giants at the end of January, expectations were relatively low for Teng. He impressed in spring training and became a dark horse candidate to make the Opening Day roster, eventually proving himself to be a viable relief arm.

The Taiwanese product arrived in Houston with just 40⅔ big league innings under his belt and a gnarly 7.30 career ERA. However, the Astros have been known for tweaking pitchers' repertoires to extract the best results from them, and that's exactly what they've done with Teng.

Teng's draw has been his devastating sweeper, and it's a pitch he's always used frequently, coming in at 39% utilization last year and 38% so far this season. The 27-year-old has a deep, five-pitch repertoire, however, and the Astros have helped him simplify it. So far in 2026, he's thrown significantly more sinkers and four-seam fastballs, while limiting his curveball and changeup to just 6% each. The result has been a 2.31 ERA over 11⅔ innings of work.

In what's been a far-too-rare occurrence this season, Teng has done exactly what the Astros had hoped for, serving as something of a long man coming in to clean up messes out of the pen. The question now is, could he be more?

Kai-Wei Teng's success could have Astros look to him as a starter

Arguably, a bigger disaster than the bullpen has been Houston's rotation. The unit ranks dead last with a 6.27 ERA and has been so badly stung by injuries that the club is grasping at straws trying to find a full complement of starters.

This was the point in the season when the Astros had planned to go to a six-man rotation, but instead are having trouble finding even five healthy arms that one can reasonably assume are up to the task.

That's where Teng comes in. With the Giants, seven of his 12 career appearances came as a starter. With a deep arsenal to rely on, he definitely looks like a hurler who could fit into a rotation spot.

Teng made it clear during spring training that although he was willing to do whatever the team thought was best, his preference was to be a starter. The roadblock then was the sheer number of arms the Astros had competing for rotation spots, many of which were just as unproven as Teng.

In general, a starter is more valuable than a reliever; however, given the dearth of options in the pen, moving Teng might just be robbing Peter to pay Paul. That's not to say that a move might still bring some benefit, but it would also give Joe Espada one fewer quality arm in a bullpen that has little in the way of consistent options.

There is also the fact that Teng traditionally has pitched better coming out of the pen than in the rotation. The sample is just seven starts, but his 7.88 ERA while working as a starter is really ugly.

If Houston were to move Teng and it didn't work, they could risk killing his confidence and burning one of the few productive arms of any type that they have. On the flip side, the gamble could provide them with something that could produce a greater impact on their fortunes overall. The simplest answer is to continue letting Teng excel where he is and not rock the boat, but simple doesn't always mean best.

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