{"id":622863,"date":"2026-03-14T04:04:24","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T04:04:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/622863\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T04:04:24","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T04:04:24","slug":"astros-closer-josh-hader-to-open-season-on-injured-list-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/622863\/","title":{"rendered":"Astros closer Josh Hader to open season on injured list"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao MvWXB TjIXL aGjvy ebVHC \"><a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/mlb\/team\/_\/name\/hou\/houston-astros\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Houston Astros<\/a> closer <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/mlb\/player\/_\/id\/32760\/josh-hader\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Josh Hader<\/a>, who has been <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/mlb\/story\/_\/id\/47920791\/astros-closer-hader-playing-catch-offseason-injury\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">dealing with biceps inflammation<\/a> throughout spring training, will open the season on the injured list, manager Joe Espada said Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Espada said Hader, who turns 32 in April, threw his first bullpen session of spring training on Tuesday, felt good and is scheduled to throw again a few more times before facing live hitters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">&#8220;I think today how he came in and how he felt yesterday throwing is a good indication that we are going in the right direction and that&#8217;s all we are looking for right now,&#8221; Espada told reporters Wednesday in West Palm Beach, Florida.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Hader, who missed the end of last season with a shoulder capsule strain, was 6-2 with 28 saves and a 2.05 ERA in 48 appearances for the Astros last season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Espada said <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/mlb\/player\/_\/id\/41208\/bryan-abreu\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Bryan Abreu<\/a>, who had seven saves last season, will likely serve as the closer until Hader returns.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC eTIW sUzSN \">The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright \u00a9 2026 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Houston Astros closer Josh Hader, who has been dealing with biceps inflammation throughout spring training, will open the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":622864,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2389],"tags":[80290,80289,42,5,649,30202,139,54,3211,4,169],"class_list":["post-622863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston-astros","tag-80290","tag-abreu-bryan","tag-astros","tag-baseball","tag-espn","tag-hader-josh","tag-houston","tag-houston-astros","tag-houstonastros","tag-mlb","tag-news"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116225550898526380","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622863","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=622863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/622864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=622863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=622863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=622863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}