Returning home: Austin Pruitt’s road back to Houston

Former UH baseball right-handed pitcher Austin Pruitt makes his home debut as an Astro on July 21 against the Indians. | Courtesy of the Houston AstrosAlthough he had made 67 major league appearances since 2017, when Austin Pruitt took the mound at Guaranteed Rate Field on a Chicago Saturday night it meant much more than almost all his previous appearances.

July 17 marked Pruitt’s Astros debut, signifying that staying the course despite all the setbacks and roadblocks, both physical and mental, he encountered over the last 18 months— which the 31-year old described as the hardest 18 months of his baseball career— had been worth it.

“That feeling was amazing,” Pruitt said. “It was like a…