Houston Astros ‘do not anticipate’ two injured pitchers returning anytime soon

It’s been a tough year for the Houston Astros and their pitching staff.

Already knowing they would be without Luis Garcia and Lance McCullers Jr. until about halfway through this season, they received some tough news when Justin Verlander arrived at camp late and started on the injured list .

Things started to snowball from there when Jose Urquidy hit the IL, followed by Framber Valdez and Cristian Javier.

This forced the Astros to rely on their second-year starters, Hunter Brown and JP France, among some of their best minor leaguers called up.

This was a major struggle for these players, putting Houston in huge deficits early on, which is ultimately one of the main reasons they sit below .500 and will have an uphill battle to make the playoffs .

But their expected starting rotation has started to become healthy, allowing them to demote those young pitchers who have floundered against MLB hitters.

The one sent to Triple-A was JP France, which was a bit of a surprise at the time.

The right-hander was coming off a rookie year that saw him finish with an 11-6 record and a 3.83 ERA in the regular season. But he couldn’t put together back-to-back strong performances as he went 0-3 with a 7.46 ERA in his five starts in 2024.

Former Astros top prospect Forrest Whitley was also expected to make an impact this year after transitioning to the bullpen before being placed on injured reserve.

Now both players are dealing with injuries and it doesn’t look like they’ll be starting for Houston anytime soon.

“I don’t anticipate them coming back to this club anytime soon because they have some hurdles to overcome,” general manager Dana Brown said. according to Chandler Rome of Athleticism.

Whenever France recovers, he’ll likely have another opportunity to make his case that he can be a part of their rotation going forward, but this feels like the end of the road for Whitley with this franchise.