DETROIT — Parallels between the Houston Astros’ past two trade deadlines are difficult to ignore. Their needs are almost identical, part an indictment of past moves and part a byproduct of some poor injury luck. Just like in last July, a top-heavy lineup needs more balance while an injury-riddled pitching staff requires reinforcements.Last year, the Astros failed in their attempt to address both areas. Trying to do so this August seems even more improbable. Houston’s lack of attractive prospect capital, coupled with the potential for a true seller’s market, makes it difficult to believe the Astros can make meaningful additions to a team that needs them.Sitting approximately $11 million under the luxury tax — after exceeding it during the last two seasons — adds more uncertainty. All of it underscores a theme that should permeate the next six weeks before the deadline: Houston will have to choose which of its deficiencies deserves its most attention.As of now, it is the lineup. General manager Dana Brown has already begun canvassing clubs about the availability of some outfielders, according to multiple people with knowledge of the team’s plans, who were granted anonymity for their candor.Augmenting a position group on pace to be one of the least productive in franchise history is sound logic. Houston entered Friday extracting a .670 OPS from an outfield that strikes out 26.1 percent of the time. Last year’s lineup did not feature such profound struggles from one position group but still lacked balance and struggled to score.At the deadline last year, Brown traded for third baseman Carlos Correa and left-handed-hitting outfielder Jesús Sánchez to strengthen the offense. He came close to acquiring right-hander Dylan Cease from the San Diego Padres, too, in what would’ve been an impressive ending to a well-rounded deadline.Talks between the Astros and Padres dissolved during the deadline’s final hour. Afterward, the Astros did not redirect their search for pitching, opting instead for a slew of internal candidates returning from injury to supplement their depth-starved staff.That backfired, something Brown acknowledged toward the end of last season. Whether he is willing to take a similar risk this August is a pertinent question. Houston’s pitching staff has stabilized after an awful start, but it still boasts baseball’s fifth-highest ERA.Another cadre of injured pitchers looms over next month. They cost nothing to acquire, would allow Houston to maintain its focus on the outfield and, in most cases, have track records of major-league effectiveness.Yet, last July, so did Cristian Javier, Luis Garcia and Spencer Arrighetti. After failing to land Cease, the Astros needed those three to propel a pitching staff on fumes. Arrighetti, sidelined since April with a fractured thumb, sported a 5.26 ERA across five August starts upon his return. Houston lost all of them. Elbow inflammation ended Arrighetti’s season before September began.Garcia, whose recovery from Tommy John surgery took two years, reinjured his elbow after his second start and did not pitch again. Javier showed some expected rust after completing his own return from Tommy John surgery.Perhaps those are isolated incidents, but pitchers who’ve undergone elbow surgery often say the first stretch of starts back is brutal. Both Ronel Blanco and Hayden Wesneski are on track for second-half returns this year after undergoing Tommy John surgery last season.Astros manager Joe Espada has said Cristian Javier is healthy after the pitcher suffered a Grade 2 right shoulder strain in April, but the 29-year-old has yet to return. (Justin Edmonds / Getty Images)It stands to reason that, if Houston does not acquire pitching at the trade deadline, Blanco and Wesneski will be in spots similar to those Garcia, Arrighetti and Javier were in last season. Lance McCullers Jr., who suffered a rotator cuff impingement in May, just made the first minor-league rehab start of his recovery, too.Javier looms as something of a wild card. He strained his shoulder in April and has already made four minor-league rehab starts, during which he built his pitch count to 75. Hunter Brown, who sustained the same injury as Javier, returned to the major-league rotation after that exact buildup.Somewhat surprisingly, Javier did not, which must raise questions about how effective Houston’s brain trust believes he can be upon his return. He will make a fifth rehab start at Triple-A Sugar Land on Saturday, the same day some thought he’d return to the major-league rotation in Detroit. Javier, it should be noted, has a 5.22 ERA across his past 18 major-league starts.“The breaking ball, (we) would like to get it more in the zone. But the shapes and quality of pitches has been good,” manager Joe Espada said of Javier, who is in the fourth season of a five-year, $64 million contract extension.“Maybe getting more consistent in the zone and putting hitters away more efficiently. But when it comes to his health, he looks healthy.”In the absence of Brown and Javier, Houston has already cycled through 13 starting pitchers. The rotation has a 4.99 ERA. Only the Colorado Rockies entered Friday with a higher one. As a byproduct of the rotation’s struggles, Espada has deployed relievers for multi-inning appearances 93 times in the season’s first 84 games. Just two teams, the Padres and Washington Nationals, have done it more.For reference, Houston received 121 multi-inning appearances from relievers in 2025. That team, of course, enjoyed a full season of Brown as a Cy Young finalist and workhorse Framber Valdez.Brown missed two months of this season with his shoulder injury, and Valdez signed with the Detroit Tigers in free agency, robbing the rotation of reliable innings-eaters while thrusting the bullpen into uncomfortable territory.Of the 93 multi-inning appearances, 60 have come from Steven Okert, Nate Pearson, Bryan King, Enyel De Los Santos, AJ Blubaugh, Bryan Abreu and Kai-Wei Teng — a group of relievers who, barring injury, will remain on Houston’s 26-man roster for the remainder of the season.Blubaugh and Okert are two of 29 relievers in baseball who entered Friday with at least 37 innings pitched. Blubaugh’s 51 2/3 innings are the second-most thrown by any reliever this season. He began his career as a starter, so the workload itself is not a glaring issue. The nuances of being a reliever, such as working on back-to-back days, are still new to him, however.Whether Blubaugh and the rest of the relievers can sustain this workload is a legitimate question. If the Astros do not believe they can, it would behoove them to bring in reinforcements, even if prospects Alimber Santa, Miguel Ullola and Brandon McPherson could provide help from Triple-A Sugar Land.Acquiring a right-handed reliever is perhaps the most straightforward way to add support. Those often come cheaper than starting pitching at the trade deadline. For a team without much top-end prospect talent to offer, that is important.Sprinkling in Santa, Ullola or McPherson could help Houston’s bullpen in the short term, but Espada has shown he prefers experienced relievers in late-game, leverage situations. That he is managing a team trying to dig out of a substantial deficit, while in the final year of his contract, only reinforces that preference.Adhering to that becomes impossible when Houston’s starters do not deliver. Recent regression from Arrighetti, coupled with the continued inconsistencies of Tatsuya Imai and Mike Burrows, has reignited questions around a rotation that just welcomed back Hunter Brown from a two-month absence.Six weeks remain for Dana Brown to figure out an answer.