The MLB non-waiver trade deadline is just a few days away, and the Houston Astros are adding a former Cy Young Award winner, a pitcher with an undefeated record this season, to an already strong rotation.
Dallas Keuchel starts for Astros Friday after 8 weeks on DL
Photo by Bob Levey/Getty Images
A trade? No, at least not yet. They will get ace Dallas Keuchel back on Friday after missing two months on the disabled list with neck discomfort.
Keuchel is 9-0 with a 1.67 ERA in 11 starts for Houston this season, but last pitched in a major league game on June 2. The 2015 American League Cy Young Award winner will start Friday’s series opener against the Detroit Tigers at Comerica Park in Detroit.
“I’ve definitely been waiting for this for a while,” Keuchel told Brian McTaggart of MLB.com. “The excitement is really building.”
The Astros have been rumored all season to be interested in several top starting pitchers on the market, though their in-house options have done just fine. Houston leads the American League with a 3.86 starters ERA, and at 67-33 is miles ahead of the rest of the AL for best record.
Getting Keuchel back will certainly bolster that, though it doesn’t necessarily mean the Astros are out of the pitching trade market. This is a team that added several veterans during the offseason — Carlos Beltran, Brian McCann, and Josh Reddick among them — to an already stacked cast of stellar young talent. Houston still might want to make its postseason starting rotation even stronger, and it certainly has the pieces to do so.
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