Astros’ sweep of Red Sox accompanied by great news about Justin Verlander

Eric Cole

St. Louis Cardinals v Houston Astros / Logan Riely/GettyImages

The Houston Astros did exactly what they needed to do over the weekend. Facing off against a hungry Red Sox team that needed a strong series to continue to hang around in the AL Wild Card race, the Astros instead ran their win streak to five games with a convincing sweep. With Seattle also on a bit of a roll themselves, Houston kept pace with a sneaky tough series against the Rays coming up.

However, that wasn't all the good news that came out of the weekend for the Astros. Justin Verlander, who has been on the shelf since June with a neck injury, had a rehab start over the weekend where the stakes were quite high, with regard to his return timeline. By all accounts from Verlander and others, he felt and looked good in that appearance, and is on track to return to the Astros' rotation.

Astros News: Justin Verlander impresses in rehab start, is on track for return from IL soon

For Verlander, the most important thing is that he got through his rehab start healthy, and it sounds like it was "mission accomplished" on that front. Not only did Verlander say that he felt good after throwing 52 pitches in three innings of work, but his stuff looked crisp and he was averaging close to 94 mph on his fastball. Given how long he has been out, Houston couldn't ask for any more than that.

The plan continues to be to give Verlander one more rehab start before his return. Assuming he throws well and doesn't have another setback, that presumably means that Astros fans could see him return from the injured list early next week. The Astros are likely to be careful with Verlander's workload upon his return, as it will take a little longer for him to be fully stretched back out.

Verlander's impending return comes at a critical point of Houston's season. The Astros rotation has been surprisingly effective in Verlander's absence. Spencer Arrighetti has rounded into form of late, which is great, and Hunter Brown has looked dominant for a while, but Ronel Blanco has started to come back to earth lately. In response, the Astros have had to really rely on their shallow depth, as well as their faith that Yusei Kikuchi's adjustments will stick. Getting Verlander back will at least give the Astros more options for the stretch run, even if he isn't what he once was.

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Eric Cole

I started my career writing about baseball covering the Atlanta Braves for SB Nation's Talking Chop back in 2015 which has since been renamed Battery Power. After years of writing for those fine folks, I made the decision to take over as Site Expert at House That Hank Built before becoming a full-time MLB Staff Writer for FanSided in 2023. Along the way, I have been a guest on multiple ESPN radio affiliates as well as 680 The Fan and 92.9 The Game to discuss Braves baseball and especially Braves prospects and was a long-time host on the Battery Power podcast. These days, I continue to write about the Braves as well as covering the Astros, Padres, and Angels with particular expertise with minor league coverage, the MLB Draft, and bashing Anthony Rendon when possible. When I am not writing about or talking about baseball (which is seldom), I am an avid baseball card collector (Maddux and Soroka being my primary personal collections) and I also collect shark teeth. All other sports are mostly dead to me as my Bills have broken my heart too many times.