Why Justin Verlander RETURN was so important to Astros!

but I was ready to write off the division if the Astros would have won yesterday's game I was ready to proclaim the Astros division champs so the fact that you haven't been you didn't win yesterday uh you you let the series you know leave out of the grasp of your hands today you can't declare the division over yet like you're kind of allowing Seattle to linger around even without winning baseball games yeah you are and and I still believe that at the end of the day when we talked about it when we made our predictions I think the Astros will win the division by you know five to seven games minimal and I think that they're going to be just fine they're still 10 games over 500 it's just that yeah when you when you have someone down you'd like to step on their throat and just basically cut off all hope um and you know we were talking about a three team Race for a while and the Rangers have looked like they've basically imploded but you we knew going into this that it was going to be between the Mariners and the Astros it looked like this was where the Astros separate themselves we also knew and the one thing that I kept thinking about was this stretch of of 14 games when you play the Red Sox in the Oriol and the Royals and and uh the Phillies and you know that the level of competition has been ramped up a bit so you'd like that cushion because you know the level of competition you're playing you're in a good spot still but yeah it would be nice at home with the way that you started and with the guys that started hitting if you could have at least won the series I thought verer was good uh finished the game strong vo slipped a little bit but maybe to be expected for a dude who's 41 and hasn't pitched in a big league game in a long long time threw 76 pitches struck out like struck out six guys in a pretty good lineup so I think it was an encouraging start for Verlander I think these are kind of the lines of what you're going to see from JV going forward though like I I don't expect Justin Verlander to be a guy who's eating seven Innings at a start I think he probably needs to be a five six inning guy if he can keep the pitch count down uh during a game give up two three runs keep your team in it I think that the you know the idea of a dominant Justin Verlander I think that's a you know long gone at this stage of his career like be a solid middle of the rotation guy and if this is the line and I know the ra is not great on two runs and five innings but if that's the line score two runs five six Innings every single start I take that at this stage from JV yeah I think it'll get a little better because you know in his rehab starts he didn't really have any High leverage situations either even in that first inning when he ramped he he had to ramp up and reach back a little bit for a few pitches that were in around 95 I think his velocity will his arm will get stronger his velocity will be more consistent we won't see that three two or three mph drop off but you're probably right in the fact that we're it would be unrealistic to think that he's going to go seven innings in a start and he's going to be the kind of guy that's going to get the kind of strikeouts he used to get and and be able to you know keep teams in the games on shut outs and one- Run games he's still very very good when he's at when he's at his best he's not what he used to be but he's he's still better than most that you can put in your rotation at this point in the season every day tay is uh becoming a little bit more hitable Taylor with an E uh he's starting to I don't want to say regress but he's given up a little bit more runs lately than we've been accustomed to give up another run today of course Yoshida yosita got him for the home run the other day uh second day in a row I guess if you want to take a little bit of uh like good news out of this second day in a row where the Astros didn't use their leverage guys uh so the the you know the big two that they have in the back of their of the bullpen should be healthy going into this Baltimore series because a Bru not used in back-to-back games Josh haer not used in back-to-back games they should be good to go you know Altuve gave him a day off it'll be good to go good to see rman back in the lineup bregman hit the home run in the first inning but then had a critical popup later in the game well but to pick up where he left off on the power surge that he's been F you that he found before he got hurt that that was a good sign and he like you mentioned he put him on the board early with the Home Run uh you got to believe that when he get you know kind of gets a little knocks a little the rust off that that'll just get better but he batted lead off today Altuve had the day off but when you get that full lineup now and you can go five strong at the top Peña slides down a notch everybody gets more com you know kind of slides down to a more comfortable position in the lower half of the lineup it should it should hopefully bode well for the offense Al says uh on YouTube where all the sophisticated listeners hang out thought verer did fine for his first start back all things considered it was felted bats with runners in scoring position today that was the critical part of the game was the seventh inning Astros had Runners at second and third no outs uh John Singleton Strikes Out Trey cabbage actually worked the walk but I think that this was his final day with the Astros I think gamble is going to take his spot bregman then popped up they brought a lefty to face yordon he shuck yordon out so you get second and third nobody out in the seventh inning you're down by two runs at that time it's like okay here's your opportunity here's your opportunity to at least tie the game Astros got nothing there and really it was game over after you didn't get anything there well even if you don't tie it Jeremy second and third nobody out you got to at least push one across there has to be some way of of a ground out or a sacrific fly that gets you at least one run there so that you're in a one-run ball game to not get anything there was a bit demoralizing for me I thought that was a huge opportunity as well um and you know Runners left on base for this team in the last two games has been a bit of an issue yeah