Houston Astros Report: Lance McCullers Jr. edging closer to a return

The Houston Astros were afforded the luxury of some positive news as one their aces is just about ready to come back to the bump.

Lance McCullers Jr., strongly considered one of the Houston Astros aces, is on the mend and approaching the likelihood of a return soon.  McCullers has been on the disabled list since July 31 because of a lingering back injury.  We all knew something wasn’t quite right about McCullers but he continued to pitch albeit well below his standards.

The Houston Astros decided to make the prudent move to send him to the DL while the team had — and continues to — have a double-digit lead in the AL West.  He did play catch earlier this month but his activity has accelerated over the past the week.  McCullers also partook in two bullpen sessions last week — occurring last Monday and Thursday — and the consensus was that he felt well doing them.

This is certainly uplifting news as all of our injured guys start trickling back into the lineup for the final stretch run in September to go into the postseason on a strong note.  But according to FOX26’s, Mark Berman, McCullers’ looked good in his session:

Here’s what he had to report:

The bullpen session is a critical step in ensuring if he’s able to handle the workload of an actual game.  Hinch mentions that he looked good so it will likely won’t be too much longer before he gets his rehab assignment.  And from what he said, he’ll need multiple of those, which is quite understandable.

The best approach with McCullers is to bring him along at the right pace and not to rush because the risk is too far to great to re-injure him.  That’s certainly not a good thing with as little baseball as we have left before the end of the season.  I’m fully trusting of the Houston Astros staff to get this one right for the sake of McCullers.

But the fact that this is being reported is notable and it will be great to see him back out there once again as I still feel he has yet to reach his full potential as a dominating ace in this league.  We’ll have to see as time goes by.

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McCullers has posted a 9.42 ERA and has recorded 12 strikeouts, 15 earned runs, nine walks, zero home runs and a 2.23 WHIP through 14.1 innings pitched since the All-Star Break.

Go Astros.