Angels’ Bud Norris recalls time spent with Astros

When Bud Norris joined the Houston Astros in July 2009, he made his major league debut on what was then the sport’s oldest roster.

“Older than the Phillies,” he said Monday at Minute Maid Park, to which locker mate and former Philadelphia outfielder Ben Revere turned up his head.

By 2013, the Astros were baseball’s youngest team, widely perceived to be intentionally losing, and Norris was their opening-day starter. They traded him for prospects that July, but he said the four previous years were a weird way to be introduced to Major League Baseball.

“It happened so fast,” Norris said. “It was tough, because those were my prime years. I was a 24-year-old that cracked the big leagues and I had some good numbers and I just felt at times like I didn’t know what was around me.”

Now 32, Norris is an Angels reliever, on his fifth team in two years.

The day he debuted, a veteran right-hander named Doug Brocail relieved him. Less than two years later, amid a 56-win season, the Astros fired their pitching coach and hired Brocail to fill the role in the interim, for his first job on a major league staff. Norris recalled his former teammate telling him to just keep doing what he was doing, for he needed to spend his time working with the club’s younger players.

“And, really, I was at a point in my career where I could’ve used a big league pitching coach,” Norris said.

Between the 2012 and 2013 seasons, the Astros won only 106 games, as many as the Chicago Cubs won in the 2016 season and a National League division series combined. Houston was historically bad, and attendance at Minute Maid Park was historically low, down more than 10,000 spectators per game from 2009.

“I really enjoyed my time in Houston,” Norris said. “I felt sorry for the fan base and what they had to go through. The die-hard Astros fans, they know who they are, and I know who they are.

“I’m happy to see that they’ve gotten back to a very competitive team and everything else, but, granted, I had to go through some rougher years to get to where they are now.”

After the 2011 season, the Astros hired Jeff Luhnow from St. Louis as their general manager. He cut salary and invested in the farm system and did so via unorthodox methods, unearthing many of the players who make the team an American League favorite in 2017.

Fifteen current Astros are making more than the $3 million Norris earned in 2013, which qualified him as that team’s highest-paid player. Their 2017 opening-day payroll of $124.3 million was more than $98 million greater than the same figure in 2013.

“There were multiple people in the league making more than our entire payroll, and we were out there trying to play Major League Baseball games,” Norris said. “There were some really dark days here, man. It was not easy coming to work every day. It was not easy shagging fly balls, as dark as it was.”

Short hops

The Angels transferred right-hander Huston Street to the 60-day disabled list to make room on their 40-man roster for minor league right-hander Parker Bridwell. Street suffered a lat strain March 3 and the initial prognosis was three to four weeks until he would be fit to throw again. He is eligible to be activated June 1. He began to throw April 4 and is throwing from 100 feet. Asked about the discrepancy between the initial and new expectations, general manager Billy Eppler said Street encountered mild shoulder impingement near the start of his throwing program “so we slowed him down.” … Bridwell is 25 years old with a 4.79 career ERA over 657 minor league innings, thrown mostly as a starter. The Angels agreed to send cash or a player to be named to acquire him from Baltimore.

pedro.moura@latimes.com

Twitter: @pedromoura