Whitley was placed on the seven-day injured list with shoulder fatigue Wednesday, Chandler Rome of the Houston Chronicle reports.

EDGE Analysis

The Astros will hope that Whitley's shoulder fatigue is the primary explanation for his awful start to the season for Triple-A Round Rock. He's struggled to a 12.21 ERA in 24.1 innings and seen his strikeout rate (which typically sits above 30 percent) fall to 24.4 percent while his walk rate spiked to 12.6 percent. He'll head to the Astros' spring training facility to rehab and sort himself out, so it sounds as though he could be taken out of the firing line for quite some time. Any plans of him making his big-league debut any time soon appear to have been put on hold, but he's close enough to the majors and talented enough that a late-season debut remains possible if he can return to being healthy and effective.