{"id":408508,"date":"2026-08-17T00:08:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T00:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/408508\/"},"modified":"2026-08-17T00:08:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T00:08:11","slug":"houston-astros-ronel-blanco-sent-down-miguel-ullola-called-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/408508\/","title":{"rendered":"Houston Astros: Ronel Blanco sent down, Miguel Ullola called up"},"content":{"rendered":"

The\u00a0Houston Astros<\/a>\u00a0optioned Ronel Blanco to Triple-A Sugar Land after Saturday\u2019s game against the Seattle Mariners, sending down the right-hander they hoped would help stabilize their rotation.<\/p>\n

Manager Joe Espada said Blanco will go to Triple-A to start \u201csome games,\u201d leaving the duration of his minor-league assignment open-ended.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just think that we need to (improve) just the sharpness of his pitches, being able to finish hitters off,\u201d Espada said before Sunday\u2019s series finale against the Mariners. \u201cHe\u2019s throwing strikes. Maybe creating some swing and miss, curveball-slider can be better pitches for him. So we gave him a plan, he\u2019s going to go down there and start some games and try to refine some of his pitches.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his first four starts back, Blanco compiled a 6.98 ERA, completing at least five innings just once. He moved to the bullpen this weekend and pitched Saturday after a seven-day layoff. Blanco\u2019s whiff rate, 25.8%, is below his 30.1% career rate and he has 12 walks and 20 strikeouts across 23 \u2153 innings. He has also allowed seven home runs in that span.<\/p>\n

Optioning Blanco underscores\u00a0the tenuous state of Houston\u2019s rotation<\/a>. The Astros recalled reliever Miguel Ullola from Triple-A Sugar Land to replace Blanco on the active roster Sunday. They did not announce starters for the first two games of their upcoming series against the Angels, which begins Tuesday. Peter Lambert is scheduled to pitch the finale of that series on five days\u2019 rest.<\/p>\n

Ullola gives the Astros a fresh bullpen arm for Sunday\u2019s series finale. This is the right-hander\u2019s third callup this season; he allowed three runs in five total innings over his first two major-league stints.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The\u00a0Houston Astros\u00a0optioned Ronel Blanco to Triple-A Sugar Land after Saturday\u2019s game against the Seattle Mariners, sending down the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":408509,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[56,58,57],"class_list":["post-408508","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\/408508","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=408508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408508\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/408509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}