The Houston Astros are fighting for the chance to play in the wild card game in just over a week’s time, but they may have to do so without their closer Ken Giles.
According to the Houston Chronicle, the Houston Astros biggest offseason acquisition was hit on his right wrist by a liner while going through his regular routine in the outfield during batting practice on Saturday and had to be carted off the field.
According to Astros manager A.J. Hinch, “It wasn’t good. It looked like the ball off of the bat hit him pretty hard, so he was already starting to bruise in the wrist area. He’ll be taken in.”
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Houston appeared to have a favorable schedule down the stretch, and took advantage of it earlier in the week with a sweep in Oakland, but have dropped the first two of their series at home against the fourth place Angels. Houston still has five left with the Halos, so getting some wins against a team that has a 68-86 record will go a long way towards helping the Astros postseason aspirations.
This season has been a tough one for Giles, filled with numerous ups and downs. After accumulating a 9.00 ERA and being bumped from the closer role before the season even began, the hard-throwing righty has turned things around since April and had even reclaimed his spot in the ninth last month. There were times earlier in the season that Giles would blow a save and then leave before the media had the chance to ask him any questions. Since, he had lowered his seasonal ERA all the way to 3.47 heading into last night’s game.
Friday night against the Angels, Giles had his worst outing of the year, surrendering six earned in just 1/3 of an inning to give the Angels a 10-6 win. With that blowup, his ERA rose nearly a run to 4.31 on the season.
With Giles unavailable at least for today’s game, if not the rest of the season, Luke Gregerson and Will Harris will likely get the first crack at the closer role with Gregerson being the team’s closer last season and early this year before being supplanted by Harris. Hinch has also stated that rookies Chris Devenski and Jandel Gustave along with veteran Pat Neshek will be options for high leverage situations.
Gustave has totaled just 11 1/3 innings with the Astros this season but has struck out 14 in that time, while Neshek holds a 1.69 ERA this month and a 2.42 ERA on the year, elevated by a rough April. Devenski is an under-the-radar rookie that has been used both in the rotation and as a long reliever. In his last eleven outings, which spans 16 innings of relief work, the right-hander has not allowed a run to score which has lowered his ERA on the season to just 1.92. In five starts Devenski held a 4.01 ERA while in 41 relief appearances (80 innings) he has a 1.35 ERA.
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