At his father’s house in Houston, Astros prospect Nehomar Ochoa Jr. has the seven-pound metal hook, a memento from a harrowing event that could have been much worse.
“I actually have in mind,” Ochoa said, “when I make it to the big leagues – hopefully soon, or you know, when God allows it – I’m thinking about getting a chain, man, and hanging it up there.”
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Ochoa, the 21-year-old outfielder who attended Galena Park High School, is continuing his work toward that goal currently in the Arizona Fall League. The Astros included Ochoa in their prospect contingent at this year’s AFL to get him more games after two seasons shortened by injuries.
A broken finger halted his 2026 minor-league season, shortly after Ochoa had earned his first promotion to High-A. It was untimely, curtailing a step forward in his third full season in Houston’s organization, but not the first trial from which Ochoa has emerged undeterred.
In March 2025, Ochoa was in spring training with the Astros, who drafted him in the 11th round in 2023. After a game on the minor-league side, Ochoa and his then-girlfriend drove to Miami to have dinner.
As Ochoa recalls, he was driving on the interstate behind a black GMC pickup truck, which hit a pothole. The hook flew out of the truck bed and toward his car, broke through the windshield and hit the right side of his forehead.
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“I had no time to react, I had no time to move or anything,” Ochoa said by phone from Arizona. “It hits me in the head, and I kind of swerve, but then I hold myself together so I wouldn’t crash.”
A hook that flew from the bed of a pickup ahead of him on a Florida freeway crashed through the windshield of a vehicle Nehomar Ochoa Jr. was driving, leaving him “just glad to be alive, to be honest.” (Courtesy Nehomar Ochoa Jr.)
Ochoa said he pulled over to the left shoulder, holding a hand to his forehead. As he removed it, “blood just starts splattering all over the car.” The truck driver pulled over as well, he said, but then left without checking on him. Ochoa wrapped his shirt over his forehead and called Rafael Soto, the Astros’ senior director of minor-league operations, on FaceTime.
Soto answered but couldn’t see at first what had occurred. Ochoa explained, then turned his camera to show the hole in his windshield.
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“I couldn’t believe it, I think it took me a second,” Soto said. “Then I think my immediate reaction was, ‘Are you OK? ‘ … You could tell something had happened and from there I just ran across the hallway … straight to our medical coordinator.”
They located a hospital near Ochoa and gave directions to him and his then-girlfriend, dispatching some Astros medical staff to meet him there. Ochoa was calm throughout the call, Soto said.
“He’s just a calm, collected kid,” Soto said. “He handles baseball the same way he handled the situation.”
It did not make his ride to the hospital any easier, however.
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“The pain that I felt in my head was crazy,” Ochoa said. “I was bleeding and my head was pounding, I felt like I was going to pass out.”
At one point, Ochoa said, he started bleeding from his nose, which is “when I started to get worried.” At the hospital he received five stitches in his forehead and was diagnosed with a frontal sinus fracture, he said. Ochoa said he was given the option of surgery but decided to let the fracture heal on its own.
“After I got the stitches done, they told me if I was to get hit two inches to my right, I would have been completely knocked out, and obviously I would have crashed,” Ochoa said. “And if I was to get hit two inches to the left side of my forehead, I would have died on the spot, like on the impact.
“I’m just glad to be alive, to be honest. I was happy that I was alive. And I’m blessed and it was a miracle because God protected me and it could have been worse, I could have died, but I didn’t.”
The hook that flew through Nehomar Ochoa Jr.’s windshield and hit him on the right side of his forehead, leading to him bleeding profusely and being diagnosed with a frontal sinus fracture. (Courtesy Nehomar Ochoa Jr.)
Two months later, instead, Ochoa was playing games at Single-A Fayetteville. But his initial return proved tough. He played in 29 games due to injuries in 2025, hit .158 and felt frustrated. He talked often with his father, a source of rare perspective. The elder Nehomar Ochoa pitched in three minor-league seasons in the Expos system before a shoulder injury suffered falling off a horse ended his career.
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“He kept telling me, ‘Son, just keep pushing, work hard and just try your best to come back,'” Ochoa said.
Ochoa spent much of last offseason living and training in Venezuela, where he was born and his mother lives, and said it helped to “just relax, get my mind off everything.” He started a third straight season at Single-A this spring. With a crowd of outfield prospects at the lower levels, the Astros challenged Ochoa to take up first base along with being an outfield option.
After posting a .792 OPS in 36 games with Fayetteville, Ochoa was promoted in June to High-A Asheville. He played in just 28 games before breaking his right ring finger on a slide but hit .305 with a .909 OPS at High-A. In 272 plate appearances this season, the 6-foot-4, 230-pound Ochoa posted a .287/.349/.500 slash line with 11 home runs and 29 stolen bases.
“Really impressive season, to say the least,” Astros director of player development Sam Niedorf said. “I think what we saw was really his ability to impact the baseball in the batter’s box and ultimately on the bases. For a guy his size and with the physicality he possesses, it’s a pretty unique skill set that he has.”
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Ochoa’s stint in the AFL was as much a chance to keep working on his defense, both at first base and in the outfield, as to get at-bats, Niedorf said. Entering Friday, Ochoa had a .224/.352/.395 slash line in 20 games in the AFL, with two home runs, 11 stolen bases, 11 walks and 27 strikeouts.
“A big thing that we’ve challenged him with is just the ability to make the proper swing decisions,” said Niedorf. “Know where he does damage, know where he doesn’t, know when he’s in advantage counts, know when he isn’t – that’s the biggest piece facing his development right now.
“He’s got the raw intangibles, he’s got the physicality, the athleticism to do a lot of different things on both sides of the ball. It’s just really fine-tuning and harping on the approach.”
Ochoa is happy to have such a focus. He said his finger is fully healed, while he remains aware that his head can start to hurt if he yells too loudly or from contact. Ochoa allows that “last year wasn’t a good year at all,” and the first two months of this one were trying. But the move up to High-A was “a big relief,” he said, and perhaps a springboard.
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“It was just me and baseball,” Ochoa said. “I wasn’t worried about being called up, I wasn’t worried about having to do the maximum to get called up or anything. I was just having fun, just like a little kid enjoying the game. That’s what worked best for me.”
AFL notes
• Among the pitchers the Astros sent to the AFL is right-hander Joey Dixon, their seventh-round pick in 2023. Dixon is 24 but has thrown just 7 ⅓ minor-league innings due to injuries, including Tommy John surgery in 2024. It left him still something of an unknown entering the Fall League, where over his first five outings he posted a 2.89 ERA with eight hits allowed, five walks and 15 strikeouts in 9 ⅓ innings.
“I think those (injury) interruptions or pauses have never changed how we viewed the talent,” Niedorf said. “This is a chance for him to compete, to accumulate innings and experience. But for us, it’s not about the result. It’s been the quality of the execution, the consistency of the work and ultimately the foundation that he’s putting together right now that gives us a ton of hope for 2027.”
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• Infielder Nick Monistere, the Astros’ fourth-round pick in 2025, was also part of their AFL contingent. Monistere, 22, started this season at Single-A Fayetteville and posted an .805 OPS in 25 games prior to an oblique injury. He returned late in the season and played 26 games at High-A Asheville, batting .106, and like Ochoa went to the AFL to get more at-bats.
“He came back to Asheville post-injury and really just wasn’t himself – timing was off, had a tough time kind of adjusting to being fully healthy again and I think more than anything trusting that the oblique was fully healthy,” Niedorf said. “Right now, he’s in a really good spot. … He’s a really good athlete and the big thing with him is just getting him on the field and letting him show what he can do.”
• Right-hander Jank Pichardo was Houston’s only prospect selected to the AFL Fall Stars roster. Pichardo, 22, has a 6.49 ERA in 69 ⅓ innings between rookie-level and A-ball in the Astros system.
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This article originally published at Houston Astros prospect Nehomar Ochoa Jr. survived a freak accident. He keeps chasing his MLB dream.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: Sports.yahoo.com
