Houston Astros Lead Major League Baseball In Unfortunate Stat

The Houston Astros pitching staff is dealing with a lot of injuries, which has the team leading the league in a bad statistic.

Apr 10, 2024; Kansas City, Missouri, USA; Houston Astros pitcher Spencer Arrighetti (41) reaches for / William Purnell-USA TODAY Sports

The Houston Astros' injury troubles this season have been well-documented.

What was supposed to be a star-studded staff has turned into a rotating cast of struggling pitchers, with only a couple of players keeping them afloat.

As all of Houston's pitching injuries add up, the club leads the league in pitchers used this season with 24. For additional context, the club only used 22 pitchers all of 2022.

Lance McCullers Jr., Jose Uruquidy and Luis Garcia are all starting pitchers that have yet to make an appearance this year. Framber Valdez was also injured after just his second outing of the season.

Things seemed to be on an upward trend when Justin Verlander returned, but the Astros then lost Cristian Javier almost immediately.

To deal with these injuries, Houston has turned to young arms, some of which were already in the Majors, while others were forced into action.

To start out with the good, Ronel Blanco has been a wonderful surprise up to this point. He had his no-hitter that made headlines, but he has been more than solid this entire year. Through four outings, Blanco has maintained a 1.33 ERA.

Verlander had a good first outing, earning a quality start, and Javier was having a great season before being injured.

Outside of that, things have been mostly bad for the Astros' pitchers, especially the young ones.

Blair Henley and Spencer Arrighetti are two young pitchers who were thrust into action and had their MLB debuts go historically poorly.

Fellow young Houston pitcher Hunter Brown was also a major reason why the Astros became the first team ever to have their starting pitchers allow 24 runs while getting fewer than 24 outs in a three-game span.

That is just the issues with the starting pitching, as their relievers have also had plenty of struggles as a staff and are missing some arms.

Time will heal the wounds that they are currently dealing with, but it might not be able to make up for the 7-16 start that Houston has seen this season.