The Houston Astros will hand the ball to Ronel Blanco on Monday night against the Miami Marlins, and the date matters: it will be his first major league appearance since May 17, 2025. Blanco has been on the injured list all season recovering from right elbow surgery — a Tommy John procedure on a torn UCL last June, per RotoWire — and Houston is set to activate him from the 60-day injured list before first pitch. The club cleared a 40-man roster spot Sunday when it designated Nate Pearson for assignment.
The rehab work suggests the arm is ready, if not yet stretched out. Blanco made five minor league outings across three levels beginning June 19 and allowed two earned runs over 17 innings, striking out 13 against six walks. His last tune-up, on July 12 for Triple-A Sugar Land, was 4 1/3 scoreless innings — matching the longest outing of his assignment, which is why Houston is unlikely to ask him for length right away against Miami and right-hander Janson Junk.
What Houston is really welcoming back is the pitcher who went 13-6 with a 2.80 ERA over 167 1/3 innings in 2024, a season he opened by no-hitting Toronto on April 1. The elbow cut his 2025 short at nine starts (3-4, 4.10), and this year’s rotation has felt his absence. Lance McCullers Jr. was traded to Milwaukee last week, and Hunter Brown has walked 15 over his last three starts. Blanco returns to a team that has lost four straight after a home sweep by Baltimore and sits 47-54, four games behind Texas in the AL West and four and a half back of the final wild card. Two weeks from the August 3 deadline, a healthy Blanco is the closest thing to a rotation addition the front office can get without paying for one — and unlike a rental, he has already carried a full season’s workload for a team with October expectations.
For fantasy managers, patience beats aggression here. First starts back from Tommy John are volatile, the workload will likely be capped near his rehab limit, and the two-start upside isn’t there yet. Blanco is a monitor-the-velocity stash in 12-team leagues and a reasonable speculative add in deeper formats, with the Marlins matchup making him a defensible desperation stream only if your ratios can absorb a short outing.
