Curious roster management and overuse are crushing a ravaged Astros staff

HOUSTON — This can’t continue, not if the Astros are to climb out of a deficit they’ve created and contend for a championship. Carrying baseball’s worst pitching staff isn’t compatible with anything this club aspires to accomplish, a fact amplified across the first 36 games of this gnarly season.Absences from ace Hunter Brown, $18 million man Tatsuya Imai and closer Josh Hader are impossible to ignore, but pitching injuries — or, in Imai’s case, “arm fatigue” — impact teams across the sport.Advertisement