Astros Recall Shawn Dubin; Option Brandon Bielak

One day after taking his fourth loss of the season, Brandon Bielak was optioned to AAA Sugar Land. Shawn Dubin was called up in his place. This will be Dubin's first stint in the big leagues.

Bielak was called up after José Urquidy's injury, and got off to a decent start, but the quality of contact he was surrendering showed that regression would likely come. It came for Bielak hard.

After finishing May with only a 3.19 ERA, he posted a 6.61 ERA in three June starts. Teams hit .343 with a 1.017 OPS this month on Bielak. With Bielak going down, the Astros will now carry a three-man rotation of Framber Valdez, Cristian Javier, Hunter Brown, J.P. France and Ronel Blanco.

While he did regress, Bielak also fell victim to a lack of run support, receiving two runs or less of support in four of his eight starts.

Dubin has both started and come out of the bullpen for Sugar Land, and it appears he will begin his Astros stint as a reliever. In nine innings of relief this season, Dubin has struck out seven, surrending 16 hits and allowing a 12.00 ERA.

Dubin will likely fill a role similar to the one Seth Martinez filled last season--a length arm in relief that only pitches in low leverage spots.

Baseball America ranked Dubin as the Astros 25th best prospect before the season began, while the scouts at MLB.com ranked him the Astros 23rd best prospect. His fastball, which has touched 101.1 mph, received a 65-grade.

While his small sample size in AAA out of the bullpen doesn't give great confidence, Dubin does possess some electric stuff. His small stature and jerky delivery could limit his ceiling as a starter, but he definitely can make some noise as a one-inning reliever.