Astros simply have to accept this rash (but necessary) Lance McCullers Jr. decision

On the highway of starting pitchers, Lance McCullers Jr. and his latest injury may have given the Houston Astros the off-ramp they needed. When they placed him on the 15-day IL this week, he became the fourth member of their Opening Day rotation to land on that list. That gave them a convenient pause before they had to make a decision that was approaching like a speeding truck.

Nobody needs a reminder of how rough it’s been for McCullers, but we’ll provide one anyway. He’s made eight starts and has a 6.86 ERA, a 1.53 WHIP, and 22 walks in 39.1 innings. He’s had a couple of respectable-looking starts recently — last Wednesday against Seattle looked okay, but with two home runs allowed and two starts before that in Baltimore was sort of okay — but he’s still allowed 11 runs in 14 innings over the last three starts.

The decision that nobody in the organization wants to make out loud is the right one. Don’t bring him back.

Lance McCullers Jr. no longer deserves a rotation spot with the Astros

There is no cute way to dress up what’s happening to him. He has a high ERA, he’s getting hit hard, and has allowed a .374 wOBA. There are some peripherals that point to better times, but a lot of the peripherals come from a nine-strikeout game against the Orioles when the bottom of their order couldn’t stop swinging. 

And it does go back to last season. The 6.51 ERA last year came with diminished velocity, and the warning signs from the comeback were the warning signs we’re seeing confirmed now. It’s now two seasons, 21 starts (24 appearances), and a career-high in nothing other than home runs per nine innings and home runs per fly ball. The pitcher who has dazzled at times throughout his career and been a postseason hero is not that guy anymore.

It would be easy to point to the shoulder inflammation as the explanation for his 2026 numbers, but the 2025 numbers are right there for a rebuttal. He came back from a nearly 900-day absence with everyone rooting for him. But the velocity was down. The command was inconsistent. His once-excellent ground ball rate had dipped (and has continued dipping). 

This spring, he told reporters he was going to stop chasing strikeouts and revamped his repertoire. It was flagged in March as a potential problem. Two months later, it’s all different for him, and his ground-ball rate has cratered. The Statcast page tells the same story as the eye test. He simply doesn’t have a way to put hitters away. What he has is a $17.7 million salary and another stint on the IL.

The Astros entered the weekend 20-31 and saved only by the Angels from being the worst team in the American League. Their starters have the fifth-worst ERA in baseball. They’ve already given starts to 13 pitchers, and two of their best, Hunter Brown and Cristian Javier, are still on the IL. The temptation would be to send McCullers out because someone has to pitch. 

But that’s the trap. They don’t need volume. They need a path forward. There are pitchers who could get a look at AAA. Jason Alexander and Mike Burrows are already in the big leagues. Even Kai-Wei Teng is getting starting looks now. None of those options is guaranteed to work, but they all have more upside than McCullers has shown over the last two seasons. 

The sentimental case is the only case for activation at this point. He’s in the final year of his five-year extension. He’s a two-time World Series champion. He just recorded his 900th strikeout and was the fastest in Astros history (by innings) to reach that number, which he called a bittersweet milestone because of how long it took in days.

In May, with the season slipping away quickly and the rotation auditioning replacements every fifth day, sentiment is something the Astros can’t afford. The IL stint is a built-in exit ramp. They should take it and figure out who can help them moving forward. The metrics wrote the verdict, but the latest injury confirmed it.

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