{"id":575779,"date":"2026-03-31T06:43:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T06:43:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/575779\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T06:43:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T06:43:13","slug":"astros-zach-cole-suffers-broken-toe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/575779\/","title":{"rendered":"Astros&#8217; Zach Cole Suffers Broken Toe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Astros outfielder\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/c\/coleza01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-03-31_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Zach Cole<\/a> broke a toe on his right foot while playing in a Triple-A game, reports <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/brianmctaggart\/status\/2038834703122190663\" rel=\"nofollow\">Brian McTaggart of MLB.com<\/a>. He was hit by a pitch from Rangers\u2019 non-roster reliever <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/t\/thompma02.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-03-31_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Mason Thompson<\/a> in the fourth inning on Sunday. He\u2019s out indefinitely, according to McTaggart.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a hit to an already thin Houston outfield. Cole entered Spring Training with a strong chance to secure his first Opening Day roster spot. He\u2019s a left-handed hitter in an outfield that leans very heavily to the right side. The Astros didn\u2019t find a trade for lefty-batting outfielder despite general manager Dana Brown repeatedly citing that as an offseason goal.<\/p>\n<p>The 25-year-old Cole had a rough Spring Training, however, ultimately playing his way off the MLB roster. He struck out 20 times in 50 trips to the plate. The pure hitting ability has been the big question throughout Cole\u2019s career. He has fanned at more than a 30% rate at virtually every stop. That includes 20 strikeouts over 52 MLB plate appearances as a September call-up last year.<\/p>\n<p>Cole also connected on four home runs and a pair of doubles in his first 15 major league games. He hit 19 homers and stole 16 bases while batting .279\/.377\/.539 in the minors last year. Cole\u2019s power and ability to play anywhere in the outfield could make him an intriguing fourth or fifth outfielder even if he\u2019s unlikely to make enough contact to profile as an everyday player.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s no immediate change to Houston\u2019s big league outfield picture.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/smithca07.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-03-31_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Cam Smith<\/a> is playing every day in right field.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/search\/search.fcgi?pid=meyerja02,meyers003jak&amp;search=Jake+Meyers&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-03-31_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Jake Meyers<\/a> is the primary center fielder, while\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/l\/loperjo01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-03-31_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Joey Loperfido<\/a> and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/m\/matthbr01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-03-31_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Brice Matthews<\/a> are working in a left field platoon. With\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/d\/dezenza01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-03-31_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Zach Dezenzo<\/a> opening the season on the injured list, third baseman\/corner outfielder <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/w\/whitcsh01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-03-31_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Shay Whitcomb<\/a> is their only healthy position player on optional assignment. He\u2019d presumably be recalled if any of Houston\u2019s big league hitters require an IL stint.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Astros outfielder\u00a0Zach Cole broke a toe on his right foot while playing in a Triple-A game, reports Brian&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":433354,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,85,99700],"class_list":{"0":"post-575779","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-zach-cole"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=575779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575779\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/433354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=575779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=575779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=575779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}