{"id":380173,"date":"2026-07-20T22:45:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T22:45:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/380173\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T22:45:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T22:45:08","slug":"houston-astros-reinstate-bennett-sousa-ronel-blanco-from-injured-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/380173\/","title":{"rendered":"Houston Astros reinstate Bennett Sousa, Ronel Blanco from injured list"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Houston Astros<\/a>\u00a0reinstated reliever Bennett Sousa and starter Ronel Blanco from the injured list prior to Monday\u2019s series opener against the Miami Marlins.<\/p>\n

Blanco was activated to start Monday in his return to the majors<\/a> from Tommy John surgery. Sousa had been on the injured list since May 9 due to elbow inflammation.<\/p>\n

Infielder Raynel Delgado was optioned to Triple-A Sugar Land in a corresponding move. Houston had an open active roster spot due to optioning reliever Bryan King to Triple-A following Sunday\u2019s game.<\/p>\n

Sousa, who had a 2.84 ERA in 44 outings for the Astros last year, started this season on the IL recovering from an oblique injury. He made five outings with an 8.10 ERA before returning to the IL with the elbow issue<\/a>. In five minor-league rehab outings before his reinstatement, Sousa allowed one unearned run. He did not pitch back-to-back days, making it unclear if that is an option initially upon his return.<\/p>\n

Sousa takes the bullpen spot vacated by King, who was optioned to Triple-A<\/a> after a four-outing stretch in which he allowed eight runs and five home runs over five innings. King had a 2.03 ERA in 38 appearances before that stretch and was one of the Astros\u2019 top leverage relievers. Manager Joe Espada said it \u201cwasn\u2019t an easy conversation\u201d with King and the Astros hope he can \u201cwork on some stuff\u201d at Triple-A.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe has that invisible fastball especially against righties\u00a0\u2014 trying to get it to be not so much general in the plate, kind of look for certain areas that he can go and get some swing and miss,\u201d Espada said. \u201cHuge improvement with his slider, especially against lefties. But we gave him a plan, an objective, for him to go down and look at some stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

Delgado was recalled Sunday and started at second base with Jeremy Pe\u00f1a and Christian Walker absent from the Astros\u2019 lineup due to injury concerns<\/a>. Pe\u00f1a returned to the lineup Monday and Walker was potentially available off the bench. The Astros designated reliever Nate Pearson for assignment<\/a> to clear a roster spot for Delgado, so Monday\u2019s roster moves left them with 13 pitchers and 13 position players.<\/p>\n

Both Blanco and Sousa were on the 60-day injured list. Their activations left Houston with one open spot on its 40-man roster.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Houston Astros\u00a0reinstated reliever Bennett Sousa and starter Ronel Blanco from the injured list prior to Monday\u2019s series…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":380174,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[56,58,57],"class_list":["post-380173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=380173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380173\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/380174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}