Josh Hader and Tatsuya Imai’s Injury Updates Are Just What the Astros Needed

This couldn't have happened at a better time.

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It's no secret that the Houston Astros pitching staff has been abysmal to begin 2026. Whether it's due to injuries, underperformance, or everything in between, the Astros have given up the most amount of runs in baseball to begin the year.

What's even more unfortunate, Houston has scored the most runs of any team entering Wednesday night and has a 7-11 record, which is dead last in the American League West. Nothing has gone right to begin the season for the Astros, but they finally received good news Wednesday morning.

According to Houston's beat writer, Brian BcTaggart, elite closer Josh Hader threw 20 pitches to Brice Matthews and Taylor Trammell, which went well. His velocity topped out at 93 MPH, which he hadn't done in a long time against live batters.

Hader has been injured with left biceps tendinitis and hasn't thrown an inning this season. In his absence, four different relievers have recorded a save, but the group still owns the second-worst bullpen ERA in baseball.

Josh Hader Is Finally Nearing a Return to a Big League Mound

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Another good injury nugget fans learned on Wednesday morning was that Tatsuya Imai was tested, and everything seemed good. He was placed on the injured list on Monday due to arm fatigue and made an interesting comment about his injury.

"He's had trouble adjusting to the American lifestyle outside baseball, and that is ‘probably’ the reason for his arm fatigue," Mike Axisa from CBS Sports wrote.

This is Imai's first season in the big leagues after spending the last eight seasons in the Nippon Professional Baseball league in Japan, his home country. Through three starts this season, Imai has allowed seven runs and walked eleven batters over 8.2 innings.

Some Astros updates:

- Hader threw 20 pitches to Trammell and Matthews and was pleased. He was at 91-93 mph for first time facing hitters in months.

- Arrighetti will start tomorrow or Thursday.

- Imai’s tests came back clean, so they’ll try to build up his arm strength.

— Brian McTaggart (@brianmctaggart) April 15, 2026

At his peak in the NPB, Imai was an elite starter. He owned a 1.92 ERA over 24 games last season, and a career 3.15 ERA in Japan. Understandably, he's having a difficult time adjusting to a completely different culture and league, but it's a good sign that he hasn't sustained a terrible injury.

If the Astros are going to turn around the pitching staff sooner than later, Imai needs to be a big part of it. The team's ace and No. 2 starter, Hunter Brown and Cristian Javier, are both on the injured list for the time being. Mike Burrows and Lance McCullers have pitched well at times, but the rotation as a whole is a mess right now.