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Astros put struggling starter on the injured list in latest rotation shuffle

Eric Cole
Eric Cole

Climbing Tal's Hill

Houston Astros v Los Angeles Dodgers / Eric Thayer/GettyImages

As many things that have gone right for the Houston Astros this season, it is probably fair to say that Lance McCullers Jr. has not exactly been one of them. While it is pretty remarkable that McCullers Jr. was able to overcome all of the setbacks he had to to return to the mound at all, the excitement over his comeback has waned after his struggles and now he is headed back on the shelf for a while.

Coming off back-to-back starts where McCullers Jr. failed to pitch more than three innings, the Astros decided to give him some downtime. McCullers Jr. was placed on the injured list on Tuesday with what was described as a right finger blister. In his place, RHP Nick Hernandez has been recalled from Triple-A to help cover some innings while McCullers Jr. is out.

Lance McCullers Jr. heads to the injured list, Astros recall Nick Hernandez

This is the time of year where blisters can be a problem as all of the sweating in the summer heat can soften pitchers' hands and make them more susceptible. One hopes that the break McCullers Jr. finds himself on not only allows for him to heal up, but to get a breather after what has been a a pretty rough stretch.

After a rocky return to the majors after a lengthy layoff, McCullers Jr. put together a string of four starts from May 16 to June 3 where he posted a 2.21 ERA and was giving Houston a quality number of innings. However, in the five starts since then, McCullers Jr. has been much less effective with a 9.90 ERA and only went five or more innings in two of those five starts.

Unfortunately, this is just the latest in a long line of ailments and setbacks for McCullers Jr. over the last few years. In addition to the long layoff after extensive elbow surgery, McCullers Jr. missed even more time earlier this year while dealing with a foot sprain. That said, this looks a bit like an "injury" that is really a break for a struggling pitcher that is still building the stamina to pitch over the course of the long baseball season.

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Eric Cole

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.