{"id":837016,"date":"2026-08-01T03:45:20","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T03:45:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/837016\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T03:45:20","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T03:45:20","slug":"houston-astros-shift-tatsuya-imai-to-the-bullpen-for-texas-rangers-series-after-rough-start","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/837016\/","title":{"rendered":"Houston Astros shift Tatsuya Imai to the bullpen for Texas Rangers series after rough start"},"content":{"rendered":"

HOUSTON (AP) \u2014 Houston starter Tatsuya Imai<\/a> will pitch out of the bullpen for Houston\u2019s weekend series against the Texas Rangers<\/a>, manager Joe Espada said Friday before the start of the three-game set after the right-hander struggled in his last start.<\/p>\n

Espada said that for now he expects the move to just be for this series.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re working with him,\u201d Espada said. \u201cWe want to try to get him right because when he\u2019s on the mound and he\u2019s a starter, his stuff is really good\u2026 (and) he can be effective.”<\/p>\n

Imai got just two outs while giving up two runs and walking four on Wednesday night against the Los Angeles Angels<\/a>. He is in his first year with the Astros after signing a three-year, $54 million contract following eight professional seasons in Japan. <\/p>\n

He\u2019s had an up and down season, at times pitching extremely well but struggling in several starts. He started and pitched six innings of a combined no-hitter against the Rangers on May 25.<\/p>\n

But he\u2019s lasted three innings or less in five of his 15 starts, including failing to get out of the first inning three times. He\u2019s 6-4 with a 5.83 ERA and 72 strikeouts in 58 2\/3 innings.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to work on a couple of things that we noticed in his last start and just trying to get him going that way,\u201d Espada said. \u201cHopefully we can give him a few innings during the series. But if not, I think we\u2019ve got a pretty good plan here moving forward to see how we can get him back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Espada said he did pitch out of the bullpen in Japan but that he hasn\u2019t done it much. He\u2019s confident that he can handle the temporary switch.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he can quickly get ready,\u201d Espada said. \u201cBut we\u2019re just going to go one inning at a time. We\u2019re going to make sure that we give him enough time to bring him in the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP MLB: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/mlb<\/p>\n

Kristie Rieken, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON (AP) \u2014 Houston starter Tatsuya Imai will pitch out of the bullpen for Houston\u2019s weekend series against…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":837017,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,85],"class_list":["post-837016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/837016","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=837016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/837016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/837017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=837016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=837016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=837016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}