The Astros are moving Tatsuya Imai to the bullpen beginning with this weekend’s series against Texas, manager Joe Espada told reporters (link via Chandler Rome of The Athletic). Houston has not yet announced a starter for Sunday’s series finale in what would have been Imai’s turn.
The decision comes after Imai failed to escape the first inning during Monday’s start in Anaheim. He allowed one hit and issued four walks among seven batters faced. It’s the third time in 15 starts that Imai hasn’t gotten out of the first inning. He has had two other appearances in which he couldn’t complete three frames.
Imai has shown flashes of the upside that made him the top pitcher coming over from Japan last winter. He struck out double digit batters in consecutive starts against the Guardians and Tigers in late June. He’d held Miami to one run with eight strikeouts over six innings last week. The start-to-start consistency simply hasn’t been there, though, and Imai carries a 5.83 earned run average over his first 15 MLB appearances. His 15% walk rate is the highest for any starting pitcher with 50+ innings. He’s averaging fewer than four innings per appearance.
This is the first season of Imai’s three-year, $54MM free agent deal. That contract contained a provision that allows him to refuse any minor league assignments, a common clause for players coming over from a foreign professional league. Imai told reporters that the Astros had not approached him about his willingness to pitch in Triple-A. Espada told reporters the righty “has shown that he belongs at the major league level.” Imai can opt out of his contract at season’s end but there’s essentially no chance he’ll do that.
Cristian Javier tossed five scoreless innings in relief on Monday. It’d make sense to plug him back into the rotation unless Houston trades for a starter. They were off on Thursday so they could push Javier into next week’s series in Toronto rather than pitch him on Sunday in a pivotal division matchup. Hunter Brown is going tonight against Nathan Eovaldi. It’ll be Ronel Blanco versus Jacob deGrom tomorrow. Thanks to the off day, the Astros could bring Peter Lambert back on regular rest for Sunday’s finale. Texas has already announced they’ll run Kumar Rocker for that game.
