The Astros' pitching staff has been a mess for weeks, and now it's official: Mike Burrows is on the injured list. MLBTradeRumors confirmed the move, and while it reads like a routine transaction, the backstory here is anything but boring.
Astros Place Mike Burrows On Injured List t.co/vHAS8Jsq54
Burrows didn't exactly earn his way onto this roster spot with strong performance. He was acquired from the Pirates over the winter as part of a three-team deal and was supposed to be rotation depth for a Houston team chasing another playoff run. Instead, he's been a disaster: a 5.99 ERA, a 1.553 WHIP, and a share of the MLB lead in losses with 9. He's also allowed 21 home runs in just 94.2 innings, tied for third-most in baseball.
The breaking point came against the Nationals on July 6, when Burrows got shelled for 10 runs (7 earned) over 4.1 innings in a 12-11 loss. That kind of line gets a pitcher sent down, not put on the IL, and that's exactly what happened first. Houston optioned him to Triple-A Sugar Land the next day. He never actually threw a pitch there.
Instead, the Astros are now retroactively placing him on the injured list with right elbow neuritis, dated back to July 7. That diagnosis is the part that should worry Houston fans more than the ugly ERA ever did. Elbow neuritis is frequently the first domino before Tommy John surgery, and Burrows already has that surgery on his resume, having gone under the knife back in 2023 while still with Pittsburgh.
For a team with real World Series aspirations, this is one more crack in a pitching staff that already had plenty. Burrows was never going to be the guy fixing Houston's rotation problems, but losing him for an extended stretch, possibly a long one if this turns into another Tommy John situation, just thins out an already stretched-thin group of arms right as the trade deadline stretch run gets started.
Expect this to accelerate whatever the Astros were already planning at the deadline. A front office that was probably shopping for bullpen help now has to at least consider adding rotation depth too, since the internal options keep getting worse instead of better.