DENVER — Coors Field is no place to conduct pitching auditions, yet there stood Ryan Weiss in a scenario he didn’t seek. He signed an incentive-laden contract with the Houston Astros as a starting pitcher, a fact he first mentioned in December and has reiterated across an awkward beginning of his tenure with the team.
“I haven’t communicated that with (the team). I think they know that,” Weiss said with two weeks remaining in spring training. “I signed as a starter and I’ve been starting the last couple of years.”
Team needs outweigh any individual’s preference. Signing Tatsuya Imai and trading for Mike Burrows moved Weiss down the team’s starting pitching hierarchy. Cristian Javier and Lance McCullers Jr. are homegrown, highly paid and performed well in spring training, squeezing Weiss out of the rotation he signed to join.
As a result, Weiss opened the season as a long reliever. Perhaps it will be his permanent position: someone capable of either shouldering the burden of an overworked bullpen or making a spot start in case of injury.
The Astros required both on Monday night inside this hitters’ haven. Ace Hunter Brown should’ve started the game, but injuring his shoulder on Friday afternoon thrust Houston’s pitching staff into a state of disarray. Using five relievers during Sunday’s extra-inning loss in Sacramento only enhanced the chaos.
To combat it, Houston’s coaching staff intended to deploy two pitchers against the Colorado Rockies: Weiss and a 27-year-old right-hander named Cody Bolton. Neither right-hander is stretched out beyond 65 or so pitches, but the team hoped piggybacking them could cover 27 outs and conserve an overworked group of relievers.
“Very few arms available today,” manager Joe Espada said. “I have to give those guys an opportunity to show up and get outs.”
Espada had no other choice. Eleven games into the season, the Astros are leaving him with little margin for error. No pitching staff in the sport has walked more hitters. Only five have a higher ERA from starting pitchers than the 5.06 mark Houston’s rotation has produced. Now, it may be without Brown for the foreseeable future.
The Astros’ revamped offense remains relentless, but even it can’t carry this heavy of a burden. Houston leads MLB with 77 runs scored and, somehow, sits just one game above .500. Monday’s 9-7 setback at Coors Field was its second consecutive loss while scoring at least seven runs.
The @Rockies put up EIGHT RUNS in the 5th! pic.twitter.com/G3sQixFCeQ
— MLB (@MLB) April 7, 2026
It is exasperating but also early. Two weeks is an infinitesimal sample size during a six-month season. March and April are sometimes more about assigning roles and ascertaining who can be trusted when the more meaningful stretches of the season arrive. Rosters then will not resemble what is there now.
Maybe, then, that’s why Weiss ran in from the right-field bullpen in the fifth inning. Runners stood at second and third base with one out. Houston had a three-run lead and entrusted it to a starting pitcher performing out of position. Weiss could not protect it. Both runners scored — and six more followed.
“Things got out of hand,” Espada said.
Poor defense from shortstop Jeremy Peña played a pivotal role, but Weiss needed 34 pitches to procure two outs. Eight runs scored before he did it. Colorado did not whiff once on the 14 swings it took in that timeframe. Weiss managed to chew up 2 2/3 innings for a pitching staff that needed it, but now has a 7.27 ERA after four outings as a reliever.
“He needs more experience doing it, but he’s done a nice job executing his pitches,” Espada said. “We like his stuff. It’s just a matter of time for him to grow into the role.”
Weiss is still learning the nuances of relieving and being ready at any moment of a game. Before this season, he had not made a professional relief appearance since 2023. Weiss sported a 3.16 ERA across 46 starts during the past two KBO seasons.
If Weiss was going to pitch Monday regardless of his role, logic suggested starting him for no other reason than allowing him to maintain his routine. That Espada and pitching coach Josh Miller tabbed Bolton, and not Weiss, to start the game seemed curious. Bolton had never started a major-league game, but had made 35 relief appearances. He finished Houston’s sixth game of the season with three scoreless innings.
Cody Bolton made his first career start for the pitching starved Astros Monday night in Denver. (Justin Edmonds / Getty Images)
To win Monday’s game, flipping the two pitchers may have been prudent. In determining whether Weiss is suited to be a reliever when this bullpen returns to full strength, deploying him during the fifth inning felt like a fine test — even if it threatened the game’s outcome. Weiss is not guaranteed a role in the rotation, even when it expands to six after Thursday’s off day.
Bolton breezed through four scoreless innings, interrupted only by Edouard Julien’s 102 mph line drive that drilled him in the lower back during the first inning. That Espada even sent Bolton back out for the fifth illustrated how shorthanded Houston’s pitching staff was.
Weiss had never entered a major-league game in the middle of an inning, much less inherited baserunners, but few softer landing spots exist than the one he received. Nine-hole hitting Kyle Karros, who awoke on Monday with 184 major-league plate appearances, stood at home plate. Weiss walked him on six pitches.
“I have to be able to make some better pitches when I first come into the game,” said Weiss, a man still mastering this new position.
“Whether I’ve done it a lot recently or not, it’s my job. Next time, I just need to do a better job. The last couple have been good, but they were clean innings. But still, I just have to do a better job.”
That is imperative. Weiss has minor-league options remaining. Bennett Sousa and Josh Hader are in various states of recovery from their injuries and, upon their return, will force difficult decisions. Performing better during auditions like Monday can only make them more difficult.
“We lost by, what, two,” Weiss asked. “If I was able to lock it down a little bit better and limit the damage, the ending of the game might have been a little bit different.”