Astros RP Qualls to DL; 1B Singleton Recalled

The Astros announced Friday that they have placed RP Chad Qualls on the 15-day DL with an as-yet undisclosed injury, and recalled 1B Jon Singleton.

#Astros place RHP Chad Qualls on 15-day DL, recall first baseman Jon Singleton from AAA Fresno.

— #VoteAltuve (@astros) June 26, 2015

Though no injury has been announced/leaked, that there is an injury makes sense.  Qualls has struggled through June with an 8.44 ERA while walking 4 batters and allowing 2 HR in 5 innings during that time.  While such abysmality can be explained away by statistical small sample, it can also be explained by a nagging injury that the pitcher has been quietly dealing with.

Since the Astros were carrying 13 pitchers on the Major League club, they were able to replace Qualls on the 25-man roster with Singleton, who has been having a good year at AAA Fresno in the PCL.  The Left-handed slugger, who served as Houston's primary first baseman for most of the 2014 season, was batting .280/.387/.553 for the Grizzlies, with a 149 wRC+, good for 7th in the league and 2nd among players younger than 25 years old (behind only Astros right fielder Domingo Santana).

The obvious resulting question is how this impacts the Astros' lineup.  Chris Carter has struggled through the past few weeks after putting up top-tier numbers for an AL 1B/DH for over a month.  Evan Gattis is entrenched at the DH position.  Occasionally, utility man Marwin Gonzalez has spelled Carter at 1B, something which should come to a relieving end with this roster move.  The main casualty of this move is Carter, who figures to receive substantially less playing time at 1B now that Singleton, the Astros' former top-ish prospect, is justifiably back on the radar.

Or, mayhap there's a trade in the works?  Cue rampant speculation.