The Houston Astros will not have two starting pitchers for the rest of the 2024 Major League Baseball regular season. According to Mike Axisa of CBS Sports on Wednesday, Cristian Javier of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic and Jose Urquidy of Mazatlan, Mexico will have season ending elbow surgeries. According to Chandler Rome of the Athletic, Javier will have Tommy John surgery, and it is expected that Urquidy will have Tommy John surgery as well according to Ian Casselberry of Yahoo! Sports. The Astros also have two other starting pitchers rehabilitating injuries as Lance McCullers of Tampa, Florida is recovering from flexor surgery and Luis Garcia of Bolivar, Venezuela is recovering from Tommy John surgery.
Cristian Javier
Javier pitched in seven games in 2024, and had a record of three wins and one loss with an earned run average of 3.89. In 34 2/3 innings pitched, he gave up 30 hits, 15 earned runs, four home runs and 19 walks, with 27 strikeouts, and a WHIP (walks and hits per innings pitched) of 1.41. Even though the ERA was very respectable, it was the highest WHIP of his entire career.
Jose Urquidy
Urquidy meanwhile has had the worst season of his career. He has an earned run average of 5.29 and a WHIP of 1.43. Urquidy has given up more hits (65) than innings pitched (63), had his first career balk, has the lowest strikeout to walk ratio of his career (1.8), and has the highest number of walks per nine innings in his career (3.6).
World Series Champions
Javier and Urquidy were both on the Astros teams that won the World Series in 2022. In the World Series, Houston beat Philadelphia in six games. In the 2022 postseason, Javier was spectacular as he gave up only one earned run in 12 2/3 innings.
Astros six games under .500
Houston finds themselves in an unfamiliar position at this time. They are at 28 wins and 34 losses, six games under .500, and seven games back of the Seattle Mariners in the American League West.
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