Hader is still throwing off flat ground as he recovers from a sprained shoulder capsule and biceps tendinitis.<\/p>\n
This is not worst case scenario, but the back of the Astros bullpen just took another step closer to it.<\/p>\n
Closer Josh Hader is still only throwing off flat ground, and is unlikely to be ready for Opening Day according to Chandler Rome of The Athletic:<\/p>\n
Losing Hader for any extended stretch of time would be a major blow to the Astros pen.<\/p>\n
Without Hader in the mix, Bryan Abreu would ascend to closing duties. Lefties Bennett Sousa, Bryan King and Steven Okert are all but guaranteed spots save for injury or disaster. That would leave three bullpen spots available, as the team will utilize a 6-man rotation, leaving them with a shortened 7-man bullpen.<\/p>\n
Candidates for those spots include A.J. Blubaugh, Kai-Wei Teng, Jason Alexander, Ryan Weiss, J.P. France and Lance McCullers Jr. Some of those arms are competing for a starting rotation spot but if they do not win a starting role, could be options in the pen. Those who don\u2019t win a spot on the Opening Day roster will be depth at Triple-A Sugar Land should injury or the need for a fresh arm arise.<\/p>\n
Other arms that are competing for a pen spot include Jayden Murray and Sam Carlson. Roddery Munoz, the Astros pick in the 2026 Rule V draft, had a very poor first outing this spring and is facing a serious climb to be in consideration for a roster spot.<\/p>\n
Enyel De Los Santos is not throwing and also unlikely to be ready for Opening Day, as Rome reported in the clip above.<\/p>\n
Nate Pearson, who was promised a chance to compete to start but has relief experience and could also be a candidate for the pen, may also not be ready for the start of the season:<\/p>\n
As previously addressed here at TCB from Nov 25, 2025:<\/p>\n
An extended absence by Hader could be disastrous for the Astros. Hader\u2019s injury last year seemed to be the final straw of an injury-riddled campaign for the team. Houston had managed to overcome a plethora of injuries to that point in August, but after Hader\u2019s injury, the wheels began to come off as they no longer had a dominant 1-2 punch to close out games in the back of the pen and the bridge getting to Abreu in the closer role was too often shaky.<\/p>\n
Rome reports the Astros are high on Teng and think he offers promise.<\/p>\n
Blubaugh could find himself in a high leverage role with his power stuff, and little other options. With the Astros not having pulled a deal for another leverage arm, that leverage arm could very well be Blubaugh.<\/p>\n
Rome lists Weiss as a bullpen candidate, but I believe he currently has an inside track to being the 6th starter with his strong season in the KBO last year and his shown durability. There would be no innings restriction concerns with Weiss.<\/p>\n
How would you structure the Astros pen with Hader, Pearson, De Los Santos all out?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hader is still throwing off flat ground as he recovers from a sprained shoulder capsule and biceps tendinitis.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":591050,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2389],"tags":[42,5,139,54,64940,65265,65394,72462,4522,32124,36802,3211,4],"class_list":["post-591049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston-astros","tag-astros","tag-baseball","tag-houston","tag-houston-astros","tag-houston-astros-analysis","tag-houston-astros-discussion","tag-houston-astros-injuries","tag-houston-astros-spring-training","tag-houston-astros-news","tag-houston-astros-roster","tag-houston-astros-rumors","tag-houstonastros","tag-mlb"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116128166960396342","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=591049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591049\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/591050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=591049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=591049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=591049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}