{"id":418731,"date":"2026-08-28T00:28:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T00:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/418731\/"},"modified":"2026-08-28T00:28:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T00:28:09","slug":"houston-astros-tatsuya-imai-told-to-stay-ready-despite-little-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/418731\/","title":{"rendered":"Houston Astros: Tatsuya Imai told to ‘stay ready’ despite little work"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK\u00a0\u2014 Tatsuya Imai, the erstwhile Houston Astros<\/a> starter now stashed in their bullpen, entered Thursday with three appearances in August. Manager Joe Espada said the Astros are notifying Imai to \u201cstay ready\u201d during that reduced usage.<\/p>\n

The Astros began a stretch of 13 games with no off day Tuesday.\u00a0Imai, who had not pitched in six days entering Thursday\u2019s series finale at Yankee Stadium, is \u201cgoing to get an opportunity to pitch\u201d during that stretch,\u00a0Espada said, though in what capacity remains unclear.<\/p>\n

Nor have the Astros indicated whether Imai could rejoin the rotation down the stretch, even for a spot start.\u00a0Espada said he \u201ccan\u2019t tell you yes or no\u201d when asked that question Tuesday. Imai owns a 5.83 ERA in 15 starts, including five in which he threw fewer than three innings.<\/p>\n

Houston will start Hunter Brown on Friday in its series opener against the Mets at Citi Field and has not announced starters for the next two games. Espada indicated that Imai could factor into pitching plans during that series in some capacity.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s opportunities for him there, there\u2019s opportunities for him tonight,\u201d Espada said before Thursday\u2019s finale against the Yankees. \u201cSo it\u2019s just day to day and we\u2019ll continue to communicate with him and just keep him ready and keep him fresh.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Astros signed Imai last offseason<\/a> to a three-year deal with a base salary of $54 million and opt-outs after each year, as well as performances bonuses for reaching 80, 90 and 100 innings in year one. Imai is among 17 different starting pitchers Houston has used this season, tying a franchise record.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK\u00a0\u2014 Tatsuya Imai, the erstwhile Houston Astros starter now stashed in their bullpen, entered Thursday with three…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":418732,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[56,58,57],"class_list":["post-418731","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\/418731","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=418731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418731\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/418732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}