Ugly Justin Verlander outing puts Astros in tough position as playoff race heats up

Eric Cole

Arizona Diamondbacks v Houston Astros / Tim Warner/GettyImages

There was already rampant speculation about the Houston Astros' playoff rotation and Justin Verlander before Sunday night's outing. Now? The chatter's been turned up.

While it certainly wouldn't be great optics to set Verlander aside, given his illustrious career and how much the Astros have invested in him (between the trade that brought him back to Houston and how much money he is making in 2024), he just hasn't looked like himself since returning from the IL.

Few saw what transpired on Sunday night coming, even with Verlander's recent struggles. After he was torched for eight runs on eight hits, including a pair of home runs by Arizona's Pavin Smith, there are real questions about how much the Astros can (or even should) rely on Verlander the rest of the season.

Justin Verlander's total collapse against the Diamondbacks indicative of larger problem for the Astros

Look, there are nights when a specific hitter just has a pitcher's number, and Smith clearly was on one on Sunday, as he ended up with three homers in the game. If the problem was solely one hitter getting some good swings, this is an entirely different conversation. However, the bigger issue is that no one in the Diamondbacks' lineup was fooled by Verlander.

Justin Verlander’s pitching line:

3 innings
8 hits
8 earned runs
1 walk
0 strikeouts
75 pitches (four swings and misses)

ERA goes from 4.52 to 5.30

Verlander’s shortest start since Aug. 9, 2018
— Brian McTaggart (@brianmctaggart) September 9, 2024

Four swings and misses in 75 pitches should be a huge red flag, and when taken in the context of all of Verlander's starts since coming back, Houston may be forced to change their plan. In the four starts that Verlander has made after being activated from the IL, he has a 9.68 ERA with just 12 strikeouts against seven walks in 17.2 innings of work. Opposing batters have a .928 OPS against him. Sure, Smith's victimization of Verlander skews the numbers a bit, but it isn't like his other starts have been impressive.

The question now is what should the Astros do in the wake of this development. They recently seemed to be set on the idea of taking Ronel Blanco out of the rotation to manage his innings, despite the fact that he has been among their best pitchers in 2024. Spencer Arrighetti didn't make things easier after he was also annihilated in his last start.

The good news is that the Astros have options in the event that they need to move away from pitching Verlander. Perhaps a hybrid approach where they handcuff Verlander and Blanco so that the latter can jump in at the first sign of trouble could make some sense. Either way, the Astros have a Verlander-sized problem on their hands.

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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.