There is always a risk to playing in the World Baseball Classic, with some teams holding their star players out due to fear of injury. For the Houston Astros, they didn’t even get that far before starting shortstop Jeremy Pena got hurt. He fractured his fingertip throwing for the Dominican Republic during an exhibition game against the Detroit Tigers on March 4 ahead of the WBC. However, it looks like the Astros avoided the worst with Pena, as they added him to the Opening Day roster Wednesday, meaning that the shortstop will avoid a stint on the injured list. That update followed Pena’s first action since his injury in an exhibition on Tuesday against Triple-A Sugar Land, where he hit a homer off his one hit in four at-bats.
