{"id":99872,"date":"2025-05-01T14:28:43","date_gmt":"2025-05-01T18:28:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=99872"},"modified":"2025-05-01T14:28:43","modified_gmt":"2025-05-01T18:28:43","slug":"lance-mccullers-jr-returns-astros-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2025\/05\/01\/lance-mccullers-jr-returns-astros-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Astros Get Boost as Lance McCullers Jr. Makes Anticipated Return"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Houston Astros right-hander Lance McCullers Jr. is set to start Sunday against the Chicago White Sox. It will mark his first appearance on the mound since Game 3 of the 2022 World Series.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m really excited to have him on the mound on Sunday,&#8221; Astros manager Joe Espada said to reporters on Wednesday. &#8220;He&#8217;s worked his tail off to get back to this point, and this whole entire team and this city should be excited to get Lance back.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>McCullers missed the entire 2023 season after undergoing surgery on his right flexor tendon and to remove a bone spur. He attempted a comeback last summer but suffered a setback, ending his season with minimal rehab outings. This year, McCullers has made four appearances, including two with Triple-A Corpus Christi.<\/p>\n<h2>Lance McCullers Jr. Returns After Nearly Three Years Away<\/h2>\n<p>McCullers <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2018\/11\/07\/houston-astros-pitcher-lance-mccullers-jr-will-miss-2019-season\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">missed the 2019 season<\/a> after undergoing Tommy John surgery, injured his flexor tendon in Game 4 of the 2021 American League Division Series and spent <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2022\/02\/27\/lance-mccullers\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">most of the next season rehabbing<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Obviously, it&#8217;s been a long layoff for me and there&#8217;s probably going to be things I have to work through and kind of get my feet back under me and things of that nature,&#8221; McCullers said to Brian McTaggart of MLB.com &#8220;I feel like I&#8217;m in as good of a spot as I can be coming out of rehab games and I&#8217;m excited for Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>Since signing a five-year, $85 million contract extension before the 2021 season, McCullers has thrown 210 innings, posting a 2.96 ERA and a 142 ERA+, showcasing how effective he can be when healthy. He is one of only two players remaining from the Astros\u2019 2017 World Series championship team. The right-hander played a key role in Houston\u2019s pennant run that year, striking out six New York Yankees to close out Game 7 of the 2017 ALCS.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Lance McCullers Jr. on his return: \u201cIt\u2019s a day I\u2019ve been waiting for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He hasn\u2019t pitched in a big league game since the 2022 World Series. <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/CL0as9EWye\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/CL0as9EWye<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Brian McTaggart (@brianmctaggart) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/brianmctaggart\/status\/1917618733255909828?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">April 30, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h3>Astros Have More Depth with McCullers&#8217; Addition<\/h3>\n<p>The return of McCullers bolsters a Houston rotation led by Framber Valdez, Hunter Brown, and Ronel Blanco, adding much-needed depth. Houston is pushing back Hayden Wesneski&#8217;s next start, who was originally scheduled to start Sunday. Spencer Arrighetti is on the injured list with a broken thumb.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" data-start=\"518\" data-end=\"826\">In the meantime, the club called up AJ Blubaugh for his <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2025\/04\/30\/astros-promote-aj-blubaugh\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">major league debut Wednesday<\/a> against the Detroit Tigers. He allowed two earned runs on five hits over four innings, striking out six and walking one. Blubaugh was optioned back to Triple-A Sugar Land after the game in anticipation of McCullers\u2019 return.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" data-start=\"828\" data-end=\"1200\">As a team, the Astros enter May with a 3.23 ERA, ranking third in the AL. Their rotation has shown consistency, with opponents hitting .212 against Houston starters and the staff averaging just 8.1 strikeouts per nine innings. McCullers&#8217; return offers both stability and upside as the team looks to climb back into contention.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo: \u00a9 Troy Taormina-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Houston Astros right-hander Lance McCullers Jr. is set to start Sunday against the Chicago White Sox. It will mark his first appearance on the mound since Game 3 of the 2022 World Series. &#8220;I&#8217;m really excited to have him on the mound on Sunday,&#8221; Astros manager Joe Espada said to reporters on Wednesday. &#8220;He&#8217;s worked [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3686,"featured_media":99873,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14,1071,35],"tags":[2359,5883,5519,3912,28503,28504],"class_list":["post-99872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-astros","category-mlb","category-news","tag-framber-valdez","tag-hayden-wesneski","tag-hunter-brown","tag-lance-mccullers-jr","tag-ronel-blanco","tag-spencer-arrighetti"],"modified_by":"Matt Graves","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3686"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99872"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99872\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":99876,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99872\/revisions\/99876"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}