WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — The Houston Astros are planning to play Jose Altuve mostly in left field this season, manager Joe Espada told the Houston Chronicle on Monday.

A nine-time All-Star, three-time batting champion and the 2017 AL MVP, Altuve has played all but two of his 1,767 major league games at second base. He won the Gold Glove in 2015, and in 2020, he led the American League with the fewest errors, with four.

“Right now the plan is for him to play the majority of his games in left field,” Espada said, adding that moving Altuve “back and forth is something that I am going to avoid.”

The idea of moving Altuve to left was first broached when the team was looking to keep third baseman Alex Bregman, who wound up signing with the Boston Red Sox. If Bregman had returned to Houston, it might have forced newly acquired Isaac Paredes to shift to second base and Altuve to the outfield.

“Whatever I have to do for [Bregman] to stay, I’m willing to do it,” Altuve said at the team’s FanFest in January.

TAMPA, Fla. — New York Yankees starting pitcher Luis Gil has been diagnosed with a high-grade lat strain in his right shoulder and will be out at least a couple of months.

Manager Aaron Boone did not disclose a specific timeline, but he said before Monday’s spring training game against Pittsburgh that Gil won’t throw for at least six weeks, after which he would need to fully build back up again.

Gil’s injury likely means Marcus Stroman — who entered camp seemingly as the odd man out in the rotation but also said he had no interest in going to the bullpen — will open the season as the team’s fifth starter. The Yankees also have veteran starting pitcher Carlos Carrasco in camp as a non-roster invitee, in addition to young starters Will Warren and Brent Headrick on their 40-man roster.

“You know these things are going to unfortunately come and pop up,” Boone said. “They do at different times of the year. Hopefully, overall, you can stay fairly healthy, but unfortunately these things are inevitable, and that’s why … every team tries to build in some depth. We feel like we’re in a good spot with who we have. It’s part of it.”

Gil, the reigning American League Rookie of the Year, experienced shoulder tightness during a bullpen session on Friday and underwent an MRI over the weekend that revealed the strain, though Boone said he still needs to undergo further examination. The hope is that Gil, 26, would return at some point in the first half, but that is unknown at the moment. Fellow starter Clarke Schmidt had a similar lat strain last year and missed about three and a half months, from late May to early September.

For optimism, the Yankees can look to last spring. Their ace, Gerrit Cole, missed the first two and a half months with nerve irritation and edema in his pitching elbow, but the rest of the rotation stepped up in his absence, posting a 3.47 ERA through the end of June and ultimately playing a big part in the Yankees winning the AL East. Now Cole, Stroman, Schmidt, Carlos Rodon and newcomer Max Fried must step up in similar fashion.

“It sucks, man; I don’t even know what to say to put it into words,” Stroman said after his Grapefruit League start against the Atlanta Braves on Sunday, which saw him allow four runs and record eight outs. “He was a huge part of this team last year. Incredible, incredible season, and we’re going to need him. We’re going to need him at some point in order to go where we want.”

Gil spent most of the 2022 and 2023 seasons recovering from Tommy John surgery, then won a spot in the rotation the follow spring and put together a sensational 2024, going 15-7 with a 3.50 ERA in 151⅔ innings. Gil walked 12.1% of the hitters he faced, by far the most among those with at least 150 innings, but he also compiled 171 strikeouts.

Most notable, though, was a significant workload bump for a pitcher who hadn’t previously reached 110 innings in pro ball and wound up pitching for a team that reached the World Series. Boone said it was “tough to say” whether that innings jump triggered injury.

“It’s pitching,” Boone added. “Different things crop up. It’s why we put so much value in what these guys do in their throwing programs and when they start, and we’re methodical in how they go about it. I feel like we’ve started to turn a corner there, but it’s certainly one of the things that is troubling in our game.”

Veteran left-handed pitcher Jose Quintana is joining the Milwaukee Brewers on a one-year, $4.25 million deal with $1 million in potential bonuses, according to multiple reports.

Quintana, 36, is coming off a 2024 season in which he went 10-10 with a 3.75 ERA in 31 starts for the New York Mets. He struck out 135 and walked 63 in 170⅓ innings. Over his past six regular-season starts, Quintana gave up four runs — three earned — in 36 1/3 innings.

He started the deciding game of New York’s NL Wild Card Series matchup with the Brewers and pitched six shutout innings in the Mets’ 4-2 victory, though he received no decision. Quintana had a total of three postseason starts, allowing six runs — five earned — over 14 1/3 innings.

Quintana now will compete for a spot in a Brewers rotation that returns right-handers Freddy Peralta, Tobias Myers and Aaron Civale. The two-time defending NL Central champions also added left-hander Nestor Cortes in a trade that sent two-time NL reliever of the year Devin Williams to the New York Yankees.

The Brewers could use some rotation depth as two-time All-Star Brandon Woodruff and Robert Gasser come back from injuries. Woodruff missed all of 2024 while recovering from shoulder surgery, and he won’t be ready for the start of the season. Gasser, who is recovering from Tommy John surgery, isn’t expected to be available until late in the season.

Milwaukee got more bad news Monday night when left-hander Aaron Ashby, a candidate for a rotation spot, left his start against the Cincinnati Reds with an injury. Murphy told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that Ashby appeared to have an oblique issue and would undergo an MRI.

When he makes his Brewers debut, Quintana will have pitched for every team in the NL Central. He was with the Chicago Cubs from 2017-20 and split the 2022 season between the Pittsburgh Pirates and St. Louis Cardinals.

Quintana owns a 102-103 record and 3.74 ERA in 359 career appearances, including 333 starts. He’s also had stints with the Chicago White Sox (2012-17), Los Angeles Angels (2021), San Francisco Giants (2021) and Mets (2023-24). He was selected to the All-Star Game in 2016.