HOUSTON — Lance McCullers Jr. loves his city. Listen to him speak, and his affinity for Houston is almost visceral. Born and raised in Tampa before being drafted by the Astros in 2012, McCullers has morphed into a homegrown Houston folk hero amid the Astros’ dynastic run, a brash sparkplug supplying rallying cries across six consecutive American League Championship Series appearances.
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After the final one, from atop a stage at Yankee Stadium last October, he asked the sparse orange-clad crowd to “bury me in the H.” McCullers’ loyalty to this franchise or its fanbase can’t be questioned. His flashes of breaking ball-buoyed brilliance have coincided with some of the Astros’ most seminal moments.
At age 23, he spun 24 consecutive curveballs to capture the city’s first American League pennant in 2017, prompting wonder at whether the Astros had found their new ace. A contract extension four years later furthered the thought. McCullers’ dogged demeanor and downright nasty stuff are well-suited for the role and ideal for a team that excels when embracing hatred.
McCullers’ body is betraying his chance to fulfill the prophecy. He will miss another season after undergoing surgery on Tuesday night to repair the flexor tendon in his right forearm and remove a lima bean-sized bone spur, reigniting the same questions surrounding him since that magical 2017 season ended.
This will be the second 162-game season McCullers has missed in the past five years. His ERA is 3.16 in the 265 innings he has thrown, illustrating the tantalizing potential. The 29-year-old right-hander made just eight regular-season starts last year, after suffering a flexor pronator muscle strain during Game 4 of the 2021 American League Division Series. On Wednesday, general manager Dana Brown intimated that injury was a precursor to McCullers’ latest malady.
“Give him cheers for his grit to come back (last year),” Brown said. “Starting out this year, he felt like he was going to be fine and continue to press through it. It continued to bother him. And so, you know, with this surgery, we feel good because at the end of the day, it was just the flexor tendon and also the bone spur, which gives him a chance to come back sometime in (2024).”
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Brown did not offer an exact timeline for McCullers’ return, but it is difficult to envision him pitching anything close to a full season in 2024. Brown said McCullers could begin a throwing program in November and the Astros will re-assess him afterward. McCullers was not available for comment.
“In talking with Lance, he’s feeling a lot better right now with things in his future,” Brown said.
McCullers received a five-year, $85 million contract extension prior to the 2021 season. The contract always amounted to a calculated risk. McCullers spent 402 days on the injured list before signing it, had thrown just 508 ⅔ innings and underwent Tommy John surgery in Nov. 2018 to reconstruct his ulnar collateral ligament. On Wednesday, Brown said McCullers’ UCL “was in good shape.”
“The bone spur is where we think he was getting a little bit of the discomfort from, that should help us in terms of timeline,” Brown said. “We don’t have a timeline as of now. But the fact that he didn’t have to get the UCL repaired, that’s a positive thing.”
RHP Lance McCullers Jr. underwent surgery on Tuesday evening on his right forearm to repair the flexor tendon and remove a bone spur, Astros GM Dana Brown announced. pic.twitter.com/PTS6stV6U2
— Houston Astros (@astros) June 14, 2023
McCullers’ Tommy John surgery sparked at least some hope his major health issues were behind him. The relatively light workload on his right arm could have inspired the belief McCullers was ready to absorb a heavier workload atop the Astros’ rotation.
Neither scenario manifested. McCullers has made 36 regular-season starts and five postseason appearances since signing his deal. For reference, Framber Valdez has started 66 regular-season games and nine postseason contests in that same timeframe. McCullers’ contract remains the longest and most lucrative given to a starting pitcher during Jim Crane’s ownership tenure.
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Twenty-eight of McCullers’ starts were made in 2021, a year before his contract even took effect. It’s the closest he’s ever come to completing a full season — and he still required a 24-day stint on the injured list to address a shoulder problem. The flexor pronator strain he suffered in the postseason forced him to miss both the American League Championship Series and World Series, too.
Now, the team must navigate its World Series defense without its most veteran pitcher. His lengthy absence has long-term ramifications for a starting rotation ravaged by injury. McCullers will miss at least some of the 2024 season. Luis Garcia will miss almost all of it after undergoing Tommy John surgery last month.
The two injuries robbed the starting rotation of 190 major-league starts and more than 1,000 innings. A foursome of Valdez, Cristian Javier, Hunter Brown and José Urquidy still inspire confidence for the 2024 team. The depth behind it does not. Similar uncertainty swirled last winter, but a Crane-led baseball operations department decided not to address it, much to the chagrin of manager Dusty Baker.
Missing Garcia and McCullers for large parts of the 2024 season will almost force Dana Brown to bolster his starting rotation this winter with a veteran arm. Acquiring one at the Aug. 1 trade deadline with multiple years of team control now appears far more logical, too, but the Astros’ lack of prospect capital could complicate matters. Brown also seems far more focused on strengthening his underperforming lineup, especially as Michael Brantley and Yordan Alvarez battle injuries.
“There’s a lot of teams that are holding out hope for a wild-card spot, so that creates some difficulty in terms of a timeline for making trades. That’s the difficult part, but a bat would be really good,” Brown said. “But with that said, we’re not afraid to strengthen the rotation. I’m always thinking about starter depth … I’m always looking for starter depth. If there’s an opportunity there, we’ll definitely pursue it.”
Down Garcia, McCullers and Urquidy, the Astros still boast baseball’s lowest ERA, an accomplishment the team’s coaching staff, three catchers and player development infrastructure should cherish. Sustaining it is another matter entirely.
Presuming Hunter Brown will be the same pitcher when he’s pressing against 180 innings in September is a gamble. So is presuming Urquidy will be unaffected after a shoulder injury and two-month layoff. J.P. France has a 4.97 FIP and a 3.54 ERA. Brandon Bielak is yielding 11.2 hits per nine and has a 1.594 WHIP.
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Something more stable is needed. The onus is on Dana Brown to find it, be it at the trade deadline or this offseason. McCullers’ salary spikes to $17 million next season and will stay there for the life of his contract through 2026. Presuming the recovery contains no setbacks, Brown appeared confident McCullers could — and would — contribute next season.
“At some point, we will get McCullers back,” Brown said, “and the beauty of it is we feel like we’re going to get a completely healthy McCullers that could post throughout the rest of this time.”
It’s a thought uttered — and unfulfilled — far too many times before.
(Photo: Wendell Cruz / USA TODAY)
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