Another Astros Reliever Makes His First Start To Help Steer A Sunken Ship

When the Houston Astros traded for Kai-Wei Teng from the San Francisco Giants on January 29, their vision to acquire a pitcher with a 6.37 ERA in seven starts and eight appearances in 2025 was to see what he could do to make the Opening Day roster.

Can he improve on his stats and lower his run total? Is he even a viable asset to a team initially coming into the 2026 season with loads of pitcher depth?

Well, fast-forward a month into the season, and the Astros are nearly in peril, pitching to the worst ERA in the leagues for starting rotation (6.15) and bullpen (6.31). They lead the league in both runs and walks allowed.

Plus, most of their arms in the rotation are already on the IL with long-term injuries. Twenty-nine games in and Houston already leads the league in the highest number of players (15) currently on the IL.

Sliver Silver Linings

On the bright side, Teng made the Opening Day roster and has ample MLB experience in pitching multiple innings. On a small sample size, Houston looked at Teng becoming a sturdy long reliever who could eat innings and bridge gaps out of the bullpen. Nobody, perhaps not even Teng himself, expected those gaps to already widen tremendously.

Standout reliever Teng to make first start for Astros Tuesday https://t.co/qIcbwgkJVm
— Brian McTaggart (@brianmctaggart) April 27, 2026

On Monday, the Astros officially named Teng the starter for Tuesday's series opener in Baltimore, making the 27-year-old Taiwanese right-hander the team's latest rotation entrant through just a month into the 2026 season. It is the first Astros start of his career, and it arrives less than three months after he was a Giants arm simply trying to stick in the big leagues.

Pitching Injuries and Underperformance

The 2026 Astros were never supposed to be a pitching powerhouse, but they weren't supposed to be this bad. The combination of preexisting injury concerns and the quantity of depth over quality approach has not panned out thus far. Hunter Brown, supposed to be the clubs ace and extremely durable in his fourth year in the MLB, is currently serving his first ever stint on the IL after just two starts.

Cristian Javier, a pitcher whose health and performance history has red flags circling all over, exited his April 8 start after a single inning with shoulder tightness and hasn't been seen since. Japanese import Tatsuya Imai, brought in as the premier international free agent signing, also landed on the IL not long after due to arm fatigue and growing pains living in a new continent.

After a few rough starts, Mike Burrows has calmed down a bit, with a decent five-inning start against the New York Yankees. Lance McCullers Jr. has labored mightily after a strong 2026 season debut, indicating a likely end to his MLB career in the near future if things don't improve.

The result? A team that has used ten different starting pitchers in the first three weeks of the season, heavily leaning on openers, Triple-A starters, and unproven arms. The rotation incompetence feeds directly into bullpen fatigue.

A Heavily Taxed Bullpen

Houston Astros pitcher Bryan Abreu | Troy Taormina-Imagn Images

Houston's relievers have thrown the fourth-most innings in baseball, and the strain is showing throughout the staff. With All-Star closer Josh Hader on the IL till late May, Bryan Abreu, the most reliable arm Houston has had through four straight seasons, cannot effectively become Hader's temporary replacement right now.

Abreu appears to be a shell of himself, with an ERA ballooning toward 13.00 in just 8.1 innings of work and a sharp decrease in velocity on what was once his always deadly fastball.

Teng's stats appear to be a positive outlier in Houston's struggles on the mound. Through eleven games, the 27-year-old has posted a 2.16 ERA in 16.2 innings of work. It's his best season stats on an MLB team in his career thus far, primarily why the Astros need Teng to help steer the sunken ship in the rotation.

Teng Needs To Step Up

In his long-relief role with the Astros, Teng has been Houston's most effective pitcher on a staff desperately needing someone to step up. Pitching coach Josh Miller has watched the bulk of his arms unravel while noticing one reliever who hasn't contributed to the downfall.

"He certainly put himself in that conversation," Miller said of Teng last week. "He's got really good stuff. He's got dynamic weapons from both sides, and it should be a matter of finding a spot for him and stretching him out, if we choose to do that."

The Astros have now chosen to do exactly that. They'll need Teng to lighten the burden of a broken rotation, especially during the following road trip to face the Baltimore Orioles and later the Boston Red Sox.

Following these matchups, the games don't get easier. Surging teams in the Cincinnati Reds, back-to-back defending champion Los Angeles Dodgers, followed by another series against the Seattle Mariners, prove a challenging set of games they'll face in an effort to climb out of a hole they dug themselves in, currently sitting last in the AL West.

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