Imai being so bad AND requiring a 6 man rotation to accommodate his routine has been an underdiscussed cause of Houston’s early struggles. If they’d been able to stick to a 5 man rotation this whole time they might not have had so many situations where they were desperate to get another inning out of a failing pitcher. Houston really needs Imai to find some resilience and consistency. Even without Brown, a rotation of Burrows, Imai, Arrighetti, Lambert, and McCullers has potential to be pretty good. Having to add a 6th arm in there stretches the notion of how realistic it is to expect their rotation to be good enough to claw back into the mix.
This might have become a problem at some point down the road, but for the time he was healthy, they had off-days between each of his first 3 starts, so they were still operating on a 5 man rotation. They didn't have a 6th starter they were using a roster spot on and wouldn't have needed to squeeze anything out of other pitchers.
Imai was not a "find", his record was known to all of MLB, and he had MLB suitors other than the Astros.
Well.. .Yankees are doing it now. 16-9 6-game win streak Best AL record by 2.5 games, best run-diff by far Stros winning 2 of 3 would negate 2 previous losses besides SEA.
Imai was a secret double agent sent over by the Dodgers to sabotage Houston. He'll instantly pitch a Cy-young triple crown season with LA after they sign him for 10-700. When have the Yankees not been the best team in baseball until around June?
Today. They aren't not even Top 3 currently in baseball. But if you meant AL, like the post said, SIX days ago they weren't the best. The post inferred that.
