{"id":649071,"date":"2026-05-05T09:47:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T09:47:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/649071\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T09:47:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T09:47:10","slug":"astros-place-yainer-diaz-on-injured-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/649071\/","title":{"rendered":"Astros Place Yainer Diaz On Injured List"},"content":{"rendered":"

A left oblique injury will send Astros catcher\u00a0Yainer Diaz<\/a> to the 10-day injured list, manager Joe Espada tells the Houston beat (relayed by Chandler Rome of The Athletic<\/a>). Houston called up<\/a>\u00a0C\u00e9sar Salazar<\/a> this evening with Diaz unavailable, so they probably won\u2019t bring up another catcher when the IL stint is finalized tomorrow.<\/p>\n

Zach Dezenzo<\/a> and\u00a0Shay Whitcomb<\/a> \u2014 the latter of whom was optioned tonight as the corresponding move for Salazar\u2019s selection \u2014 are the only healthy position players on optional assignment to Triple-A. Teams ordinarily cannot recall an optioned hitter for at least 10 days, but an exception is made when they\u2019re called back up to replace an injured player.<\/p>\n

Diaz will be the sixth hitter to land on Houston\u2019s injured list. He joins\u00a0Jeremy Pe\u00f1a<\/a> and\u00a0Jake Meyers<\/a> as regulars who are out of action. They\u2019re also down six starting pitchers \u2014 including three of their projected top four arms in Hunter Brown<\/a>,\u00a0Tatsuya Imai<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Cristian Javier<\/a> \u2014 and have been without closer\u00a0Josh Hader<\/a> all season.<\/p>\n

The injury continues what has been an ugly start for Diaz. The 27-year-old has been one of the better offensive catchers in MLB over his three-plus seasons. His numbers gradually trended down each year from a fantastic rookie campaign, though, and he has really struggled offensively through the first six weeks. Diaz is hitting .248\/.264\/.356 with a pair of home runs through 106 plate appearances.<\/p>\n

One of the most aggressive hitters in the league, Diaz has always had a low on-base floor. He has generally hit for solid averages and ranked fourth among catchers (behind\u00a0Cal Raleigh<\/a>,\u00a0Shea Langeliers<\/a> and\u00a0Salvador Perez<\/a>) with 59 homers between 2023-25. Diaz\u2019s ground-balls are up and his hard contact rate way down in the early going.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s nevertheless a sizable hit to Houston\u2019s lineup.\u00a0Christian V\u00e1zquez<\/a> has hit very well (.316\/.371\/.491) in the early going, but he had one of the game\u2019s lightest bats in each of the last three seasons. The Astros are surely pleased with what they\u2019ve gotten from V\u00e1zquez\u2019s minor league contract. Still, he\u2019s probably miscast for a primary catching job at this stage of his career. The Astros have given Salazar limited MLB opportunities over the past few years.<\/p>\n

Espada didn\u2019t specify a timeline for Diaz\u2019s return. There\u2019s a wide range of outcomes on oblique injuries depending on the severity of a strain. Even moderate strains tend to cost hitters a few weeks to a month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A left oblique injury will send Astros catcher\u00a0Yainer Diaz to the 10-day injured list, manager Joe Espada tells…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":649072,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82,163757],"class_list":["post-649071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports","tag-yainer-diaz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=649071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/649072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=649071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=649071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=649071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}