Houston Astros Slugger Gives Update After Avoiding Major Injury

The Houston Astros got some hopeful injury news surrounding one of their newest stars, but it's not perfect.

Michael Brauner | Mar 9, 2025

Sep 16, 2024; Denver, Colorado, USA; Arizona Diamondbacks first base Christian Walker (53) during the third inning against the Colorado Rockies at Coors Field. / Ron Chenoy-Imagn Images

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Houston Astros

The Houston Astros were dealing with an injury scare this week when it was revealed their most significant offseason acquisition may be hurt.

This past Wednesday, Gold Glove first baseman and new $60 million man for the Astros Christian Walker was scratched from a spring training game with oblique soreness on the same oblique which held him out for all of August last season for the Arizona Diamondbacks.

The panic reached new heights when it was announced Walker had been sent back to Houston by the team for further evaluation and an MRI.

When giving an update on the situation days after the initial scratch, manager Joe Espada revealed a positive piece of news when he said the MRI came back clean and the overall prognosis was as good as could be hoped for.

Walker described things a bit more pessimistically on Sunday, saying it was "relatively good news" per Brian McTaggart of MLB.com and that he would not be able to swing a bat for a few days before beginning his swing progression.

Whether or not Walker's status for Opening Day is in doubt is not known at this point, but on the bright side an injury which cost the veteran significant time in 2024 appears to be significantly less severe and even in a worst case scenario Walker will not miss a ton of action with over two weeks to go until the season begins.

Walker was brought to the Astros in order to put to an end the revolving door the first base position has been for a number of years now. In 2024, the team got a .651 OPS from the position as a whole with nine different players taking at least one at bat.

A consistent .800+ OPS player over the last several years, Walker presents an immediate and significant upgrade within the lineup.

His impact on defense may be even greater though, widely considered arguably the best in the league at first and winning the last three consecutive National League Gold Glove awards.

Having Walker miss any sort of major time to begin the 2025 season would have been really nothing short of a disaster, though it does not seem things are moving in that direction.

Walker is clearly somewhat frustrated understandably to be dealing with the same nagging injury, though at the end of the day things could have been much worse than they appear to be.

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