Houston Astros: The two biggest X-Factors for the team’s playoff run
By T.A. Mock
Lance McCullers Jr., RHP
Lance McCullers Jr. was in the midst of another very, very good season before going down with an elbow injury. Elbow injuries are extremely scary for pitchers but, fortunately, McCullers injury doesn’t seem to be super serious.
McCullers has a 3.93 ERA, 1.19 WHIP across the highest innings count of his career at 126. He’s continued his high strikeout, low walk ways once again notching doubt digit strikeouts per nine innings and walks per nine innings in the three range.
The Houston Astros appeared to be taking his rehab slowly as there weren’t any minor league clubs in action to give him some chances to shake the rust off. So, they were patient and slowly brought him along, however, this time in a bullpen role.
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The team didn’t believe they would be able to effectively stretch him back out to get back to starter range in terms of the number of pitches he’ll be able to throw at a time. So, McCullers has been doing extra work to get ready to come out of the bullpen.
He appeared like he was gearing up to make his first regular-season bullpen appearance of his career Tuesday night but he ended up not coming into the game. The Astros will likely want to get McCullers into a game or two for the playoffs to ensure he’ll be ready for the role.
Having an ace out of the bullpen like McCullers will be a major boon to the Houston Astros this postseason. McCullers could ramp up his incredible stuff out of the pen and go anywhere from an inning to five innings out of the pen. In fact, if it goes well, he should maybe just stay in the bullpen.
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Correa and McCullers have had their fair share of difficulties this season. However, if they both can get fully ready for the playoffs, they will plug some potential “holes” and help this team repeat as World Champions in a month.