Mike Burrows’ elbow injury as Astros’ training staff in the spotlight again for all the wrong reasons

The Houston Astros are placing Mike Burrows on the 15-day IL with elbow neuritis, effectively nullifying the struggling right-hander's demotion to Triple-A Sugar Land. It's a strange order of operations, and one that should raise some questions.

One must wonder what changed in the days after announcing his demotion that led Houston to perform the tests to arrive at this diagnosis. It's also questionable how long the injury has been affecting Burrows.

The 26-year-old has underperformed all season long, so it's not easy to pinpoint when the malady may have occurred looking at performance alone. With that said, while Burrows didn't come into 2026 with much big league experience, his struggles this year are surprising.

He was a highly-regarded prospect with the Pittsburgh Pirates and performed reasonably well with a 3.94 ERA over 96 innings last year, so for him to turn into a pitcher whose 5.99 ERA would be the third-worst mark in the majors if he had a couple more innings on his belt to qualify.

Mike Burrows' injury news reignites concerns over the Astros' training staff

Last season's injury-plagued campaign brought to light some serious problems with the way Houston was managing injuries. Yordan Alvarez's fractured hand was originally misdiagnosed as a simple strain, and it may have cost him extra time in his recovery. The mishandling of Jake Meyers' calf injury was even more blatant, as the training staff's push for him to return led to a reaggravation of the injury.

The Astros parted ways with head athletic trainer Jeremiah Randall at the end of last season, and Dana Brown promised to fix the return-to-play procedures, but that might not have been enough.

It would seem that the root of the issue might be the initial diagnosis phase, rather than the protocols the team had in place to ramp guys back up in preparation to return to action. It would be easy for one thing to lead to another, as a misdiagnosis would result in an improper treatment plan, and thus put a player in a position where they begin baseball activities before they should.

It's only speculation if that's what happened here with Burrows, but given the club's history and the strange timing of all of these updates, it makes it appear that where there's smoke, there's fire.

That would seemingly put the Astros in a precarious position as they try to fight back into the thick of the chase for October after such a poor start. This is not a team with a lot of depth, so any additional injuries could be devastating.

As for Burrows, his timeline to return is unclear at this point, but it's hard to see how he can redeem his first season in Houston. If it actually comes to light that his elbow injury wasn't caught when it should have been, there should be many heads rolling. One way or another, the Astros have to get a handle on their injury protocols because this mess has gone on way too long.

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