The Astros, down four starting pitchers, started Spencer Arrighetti tonight against the Royals.

What's a Spencer Arrighetti?

Whoever he is, he gave up seven earned runs in three innings. That's after the unknown palooka two nights ago gave up five in one-third of an inning...an ERA of 135.00.

How in the world can a team that has won six division titles in seven years enter a season with starting pitching this terrible? The GM absolutely sucks.

Don't they have 4 injured starters?

That’s the way baseball go.

It's kind of a byproduct of being so successful the last 7 years. Finishing at or new the top each year, they haven't had the great draft picks they had in the early to mid 2010's. Throw in no draft picks for a couple of rounds due to the sign cheating scandal, and you're calling up a guy who's name rhymes with spaghetti that's throwing up meatballs.

They knew that two of those four injured starters, Garcia and McCullers, wouldn't be back for months after major surgeries. They knew six weeks ago that Verlander wouldn't be ready until at least late April.

They went into the season depending on J.P. France, who has rinky dink stuff and got shelled last year after teams saw him once, and Hunter Brown. They also knew someone would have to make several starts for Verlander.

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Astros starting pitchers had like a 2.94 era before these 2 new pitchers got smoked.
It's the bullpen that's been dog chit.
Can't really help the injuries just shows there might not be much left in the farm system pitching wise.

Arrighetti with meatballs....

Going into the off-season everyone knew the Astros needed starting pitching help because of the injuries. Instead of signing a free agent starter, they went out and got another closer...Josh Hader. Ryan Pressley was a solid closer who is now the set-up man. The move made little sense at the time, even less now.

How are you going to close out games if you're starting minor leaguers who are getting shelled in the first three innings?

it seems either the starter does good and the bullpen gives it up or the starter sucks and the bullpen does a shut out. they can't get on the same page.
I don't see why they don't go out and get bauer at league minimum with an option to cut him. so if everyone comes back healthy and we don't need him or he causes issue in the dugout.

I clicked on this thinking it had to do with Spaghetti, I gotta pay more attention to the titles.

Hunter Brown, who is raw as road kill possum, started today. He got two outs before being pulled. He gave up 9 runs and 11 hits.

But hey, if we ever don't give up between 5 and 9 runs in the first inning we have this hot new closer signed by our genius GM, the one we hired after the owner canned the guy who reached four World Series in six years...and won two.