There are two days left in August. If the Astros want to go above .500 for the 4th consecutive month, they’ll need to pick up both today’s rubber match against the Mets and the series opener against the White Sox tomorrow.
On Tuesday, September begins and for the final month of the regular season, the major league roster expands from 26 players to 28 players. This roster needs the reinforcements. Unfortunately, September call-ups are more limited than they used to be. Teams can add 1 additional position player and 1 additional pitcher and that’s it.
Ideally, the Astros would have preferred to add 2 additional pitchers if they could. They just pitched a bullpen game yesterday, and today’ they’re starting rookie Ethan Pecko, which functionally is another bullpen game; there’s little to no expectation that Pecko is going to be able to go deep, over even just 5 innings.
With only 3 real starting pitchers, this leaves a lot of innings for the bullpen to cover in a 5 game cycle, and the Astros’ next offday isn’t until September 7. A 14th arm in the pitching staff is going to be a welcome sight.
Which pitcher might the Astros add to the 28-man roster?
Miguel Ullola – In his short stint in the bigs, he made 4 appearances, 3 scoreless appearances where he racked up the strikeouts (9 K in 5 innings), and 1 where he was taken deep twice in an inning for 3 runs. Ullola’s stuff played at the major league level, and he was throwing strikes at a better than expected rate. Ullola could put put to regular use in September in low to medium leverage relief.
Alimber Santa – Santa also saw success in his 2 stints in The Show this year. He appeared in 10 games, threw 15.1 innings, and allowed just 1 earned run. Santa wasn’t a big strikeout pitcher, notching just 9 in his 15.1 IP. That’s continued in AAA since he was last sent down. in 12.2 IP over 16 games, he’s registered just 8 K.
Bryan King – It’s easy to forget the Astros sent him down. Not only that, this is the second time he’s been sent down to AAA this season. King was the Astros closer early in the season, when Josh Hader was on the IL, and Bryan Abreu suddenly turned into the worst pitcher on the worst pitching staff in the majors. In his last 13 MLB appearances, he’s allowed an earned run in 9 of them. He’s had 2 scoreless appearances in Sugar Land since he was last sent down, notching 2 strikeouts per inning in each though, and he’s got he major league and leverage experience, so the Astros may opt to bring him back, hoping that as quickly as he lost his touch, he can refind it. Such is the volatility of the relief pitcher.
Logan VanWey – He’s had time with the majors club this year too, and while he’s not an exciting name, he’s done what was expected of him. In 5 appearances, and 6 innings, he allowed just 1 ER, struck out 5, and most impressive of all, allowed 0 walks. He’s been effective in Sugar Land as well. Since he was last sent down, he’s made 20 appearances, put up goose eggs in 14 of them, and allowed just 1 run in 5 others. In the 1 remaining game, he was torched for 5 runs in 0.2 innings, but that’s still not a bad success rate. In 19.1 innings, he’s struck out 25 and walked just 6.
Mike Burrows – Maybe the best way to get the bullpen some help is to get more innings out of the starters. Mike Burrows hasn’t had a great 2026 with the Astros, but one thing he did do was eat innings, even when he wasn’t preventing runs. He’s doing his rehab stint in Sugar Land and can be activated at any time. He’s made 3 starts, the first 2 scoreless outings of 4.1 and 4.2 IP with 67 and 78 pitches, and the most recent a 3 ER, 4.1 IP start where he allowed 7 hits and 2 walks. That’s a lot of baserunners, but it was in a very hitter friendly Vegas Aces ballpark, so it may be an anomaly. He may be ready to return to a thin rotation, and who knows? Maybe with Brent Strom around, we can finally see the Mike Burrows we hoped to see all year long.
Other options like Ronel Blanco and Jason Alexander don’t seem as likely. Blanco and Javier were each just torched in AAA, and granted it was also in the Vegas Aces park, and the Astros desperately need starting pitching, if they don’t feel like it’s Imai, Javier or Burrows, they’re not going to think it’s Blanco or Alexander.
Astros @ Mets Game Information and Gamethread Details
Ethan Pecko takes the mound for the Astros. This will be his third start and he’s not getting it based on the quality of this first two starts, but more just because there’s nobody else the team can turn to. He performed unimpressively in his MLB debut on August 19 against a weak Angels team, needing 89 pitching to get through 3.2 IP, allowing 2 ER. Against the Yankees on August 25, he was taken to task, lit up for 5 runs in 4.1 IP on 88 pitches, walking 4 and striking out only 1 batter.
It seems unlikely Pecko will be able to make it any deeper in today’s game too, so I would expect to see a healthy dose of Tatsuya Imai in relief, picking up Pecko’s slack. If we don’t see Imai today, despite the team pitching a bullpen game yesterday, that seems like a clear signal they’re actively trying to keep Imai from reaching the 80, 90 and 100 inning thresholds that would increase his 2027 salary by $2 million at each level.
The Mets start rookie left-handed pitcher Zac Thornton. I’m not sure what the number is, but it sure seems like the Astros have faced more than their fair share of rookie starting pitchers this season.
Thornton has 10 games under his belt this season, and is 3-4 with a nice 2.88 ERA and 1.15 WHIP. He’s not strikeout artist, with just a 6.4 K/9 to go with his 2.2 BB/9 rate. As a result, his xERA, FIP, xFIP and SIERA are noticeably higher than his ERA at 4.46, 3.85, 3.96 and 4.32 respectively.
The game will be broadcast at 2:10 p.m. CT on NBC with radio coverage on KBME 790 AM.
This post will be updated with starting lineup as they are made available.
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Imo, I think when September comes, Burrows AND Ullola should come up and Pecko should go down.
And burrows and Imai should just take the 4 and 5 slots in the rotation, innings thresholds be damned for Imai. And who knows, with an offseason and with Strom back in the fold, Imai could end up pitching at 20, 22 or 24m level next year anyways. The ceiling is there. But just having him sit taking up a roster spot when we need every arm we can get right now, we can’t afford that.
The Astros’ use of Velasquez is perplexing. Supposedly the picked him up because he hits LHPs; But he started yesterday against a RHP and doesn’t start today against a LHP.
I noticed that too. All I can think is that normally they’d be trying to get some of their starters rest days but with every game being so critical, they can’t afford to sit any of Yordan Pena Altuve Isaac or even Walker. So it seems like they’re using DH and the next best thing. Today it’s Isaac and that bumps Yordan to LF and with daulton and cam entrenched in center and right, Nick Allen gets the start against the lefty instead of nelson.
Also I’m sure he can do it but it’s interesting to note that Allen has played very little third base at the major league level before this year, always more of a middle infield guy.