{"id":720353,"date":"2026-06-08T05:51:18","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T05:51:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/720353\/"},"modified":"2026-06-08T05:51:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T05:51:18","slug":"astros-notes-brown-allen-ullola","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/720353\/","title":{"rendered":"Astros Notes: Brown, Allen, Ullola"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hunter Brown<\/a> will make his fourth and possibly final minor league rehab start on Wednesday, Astros manager Joe Espada told the Houston Chronicle\u2019s Matt Kawahara<\/a> and other reporters yesterday.\u00a0 Brown will pitch for Triple-A Sugar Land for the third time during his rehab assignment, with the first of his four outings coming with Double-A Corpus Christi on May 24.<\/p>\n

As expected, Brown\u2019s pitch count has slowly increased with each start, going from 35 to 44 to 57.\u00a0 Espada had previously hinted that the Astros could activate Brown after just three rehab outings, though an earlier return probably would\u2019ve required the use of a piggyback pitcher behind Brown if he was limited to something in the realm of 70 pitches.\u00a0 As such,\u00a0the right-hander will get a bit more time to fully build his arm strength before returning from the 60-day injured list.<\/p>\n

Brown emerged as the ace of Houston\u2019s rotation in 2025 and hit the ground running this year with an 0.84 ERA over his first two starts.\u00a0 A Grade 2 shoulder strain then sent Brown to the IL in one of the first of what has been many major injury blows to the Astros roster.\u00a0 Brown is one of seven pitchers and 10 overall players still on Houston\u2019s injured list, so it isn\u2019t any surprise that the Astros have a 30-37 record.<\/p>\n

That said, the Astros have gone 13-9 in their last 22 games, as the team has gotten a little healthier.\u00a0 Yordan Alvarez<\/a>\u2018s MVP-level numbers have helped carry the lineup, while Spencer Arrighetti<\/a>, Peter Lambert<\/a>, and Kai-Wei Teng<\/a> have all pitched well in filling in the many holes in the rotation.\u00a0 An in-form Brown returning to the top of that rotation would be another major boost to the Astros\u2019 chances of digging themselves out of their early-season hole.<\/p>\n

Just as Brown is getting nearer a return, however, yet another player is facing an injury scare.\u00a0 Nick Allen<\/a> made an early exit from today\u2019s 5-0 loss to the Athletics due to left hamstring discomfort, since arose after the infielder singled in the third inning.\u00a0 \u201cI was trying to leg out a double there and kind of felt something grab on me, a little bit on the left hammy, lower left side,\u201d Allen told MLB.com\u2019s Brian McTaggart<\/a> and other reporters.<\/p>\n

Allen said he\u2019ll undergo testing to determine the extent of the injury but downplayed the seriousness of the discomfort.\u00a0 The backup infielder already missed a couple of weeks earlier this year dealing with back spasms, but Allen has already played in 37 games this season, as the Astros\u2019 various injuries opened the door for playing time at second base, third base, and shortstop.\u00a0 Allen is providing his usual light offense (.266\/.304\/.344 in 70 plate appearances) and his glovework isn\u2019t quite up to its usual stellar standard, but Allen has been a useful depth piece for the shorthanded roster.<\/p>\n

In another piece from McTaggart<\/a>, he notes that the Astros have transitioned pitching prospect Miguel Ullola<\/a> into a full-time relief role.\u00a0 Ullola is a classic case of a pitcher with great stuff that he hasn\u2019t been able to harness \u2014 over 471 2\/3 career innings in the minors, Ullola has an impressive 30.54% strikeout rate but also a 15.75% walk rate, resulting in an uninspiring 4.45 ERA.<\/p>\n

Ullola doesn\u2019t turn 24 until later this month so it is possible he might get another look as a starter down the road.\u00a0 But after six seasons of inconsistency, \u201cyou start narrowing it down when they get to Triple-A,\u201d Espada said.\u00a0 \u201cHe\u2019s started [86] games already, so now we start getting a better feel for what he\u2019s going to be and how can impact our roster.\u201d<\/p>\n

Houston added Ullola to the 40-man roster last November to protect him from the Rule 5 Draft, and the move to the bullpen might be the final step in getting the right-hander to the majors.\u00a0 Ullola was charged with three runs over two-third of an inning today, but he hadn\u2019t allowed a run in his previous five relief innings.\u00a0 As usual, switching to relief pitching has delivered a velocity bump, as Ullola\u2019s already plus fastball has touched 97.3mph since going to the pen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hunter Brown will make his fourth and possibly final minor league rehab start on Wednesday, Astros manager Joe…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":720354,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2290],"tags":[5,1328,60791,2270],"class_list":["post-720353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-baseball","tag-baseball","tag-hunter-brown","tag-miguel-ullola","tag-nick-allen"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116712930299011515","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720353","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=720353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720353\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/720354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=720353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=720353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=720353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}