When starting pitchers Luis Garcia and Jose Urquidy joined Lance McCullers on the IL about a month ago, many fans and analysts cried, “Turn out the lights; the party’s over.”
Not so fast. Since that time, the Astros have posted a 13-8 record, compared to 15-13 before the injuries. Of course, you can’t give all the credit for that to the two unheralded rookie replacement players, Brandon Bielak, and J.P. France. But they have been a pleasant surprise, certainly exceeding expectations, and perhaps even performing better than the two pitchers they replaced in a small sample.
At the time the two veterans went down, it seemed like a disaster; that these replacement pitchers would perform much worse and gravely damage the team’s chance for the playoffs.