Houston Astros Manager Talks Potential Expanded Rotation

A rigorous early schedule for the Houston Astros has the team talking about the potential for an expanded rotation to star the season.

Is it possible that the Houston Astros might employ a six-man rotation to start the season? That was one of the questions posed to new manager Joe Espada on Thursday in a session with the media.

The reason for the question was the Astros’ schedule to start the regular season.

Houston opens at home against the New York Yankees on March 28. That kick-starts a stretch of 29 games in 34 days to start the season, including seven games to start the season, followed by an off-day and then a 13-day stretch of games.

The Astros will play games on 20 of the season’s first 21 days. That’s a significant load coming out of spring training.

So what will the Astros do? Well, Espada said that the schedule is a consideration.

“It’s different this year from years past,” Espada said. “So, yeah, we’re having conversations about that. We’ll continue to have those when we get to spring training.”

How might a six-man rotation come together? Espada didn’t elaborate.

The Astros can lock in four veterans right now in Justin Verlander, Framber Valdez, Cristian Javier and José Urquidy. The Astros could turn to second-year starters Hunter Brown and J.P. France to fill out a six-man rotation.

Is it really that easy? Probably not. After all, the Astros need to get through spring training unscathed, especially since both Luis Garcia and Lance McCullers Jr. won’t be ready until at least midseason.

There are also a number of other ways to mitigate the early schedule, including openers and spot starters.

From Espada’s perspective, it sounds like everything is on the table.

“I want to see some growth out of the younger pitchers and also for the veteran pitchers to continue to mentor some of the younger guys,” he said. “It’s going to take a lot of pitching for us to reach our goal. That’s going to be one of my messages in spring training. You could be looking (at it) from the outside but you could find your way right there in June, July picking up innings as a starter or as a reliever.”