Elbow injury will sideline Astros ace Justin Verlander for the season

Justin Verlander’s 2020 season appears to be over after just one game.

The Houston Astros‘ hopes of getting back to the World Series were dealt a near-fatal blow on Sunday when pitching ace Justin Verlander was lost for the season with an elbow injury.

Verlander started the Astros’ Opening Day game on Friday at home against Seattle, giving up two home runs and striking out seven over six innings. His fastball averaged 95 mph and topped out at 96. He showed no signs of being injured or of any lingering effects from a lat injury he dealt with in Spring Training in March. After the game, he gave no indication that anything was wrong.

“It definitely feels like I’ve come a long way since May or April. It’s crazy to think of how much stuff has changed since then,” he said on Friday, according to MLB.com’s Brian McTaggart. “I had the groin surgery, healing the lat. A lot of work to get here. It does feel nice, but every year has its different ups and downs and different obstacles to deal with. I wouldn’t say this one is that much better than any other [Opening Day win], but this one will stick out forever when I’m done with baseball because of everything that’s gone on in the world right now.”

The extent of the injury and how it will affect him going forward in his career is unknown for now. Verlander was expected to be the constant on the Astros’ pitching staff that lost Gerrit Cole to the Yankees in the offseason. He’s coming off a 2019 season in which he won his third Cy Young Award after leading the league with 21 wins and striking out 300 batters for the first time in his Cooperstown-bound career. He was the oldest pitcher to reach 300 strikeouts since Randy Johnson in 2002. His WHIP of 0.803 was the third-best mark in the Live Ball era among pitchers with at least 200 innings; his 5.5 hits allowed per nine innings trailed only Pedro Martinez in 2000, Luis Tiant in 1968, and Nolan Ryan in 1972 and 1971 over the last 100 seasons.

He seemed to be getting better with age, but time seems to have finally caught up to him. Since 2016, Verlander has thrown the most innings (870, 48 more than Max Scherzer) and the most pitches (1,000 more than second-place Scherzer). At 37, only Adam Wainwright of the Cardinals is older among starting pitchers.

Zack Greinke will slide into Verlander’s role at the top of the Astros’ rotation. The former Cy Young Award winner went 8-1 with a 3.02 ERA in 10 starts with Houston following a deadline-day deal last July. He lasted just 3.1 innings in the Astros loss to the Mariners on Sunday, giving up three earned runs on four hits. Lance McCullers Jr. is coming off Tommy John surgery and won his first start in nearly two years on Saturday.

But behind those two is a group of young and unproven pitchers like Josh James and Framber Valdez. Valdez has started just 13 games in the big leagues over the last two seasons, James only four after being primarily out of the bullpen in 2019. They’re the pitchers that the Astros will now have to rely on to keep pace with the likes of the Yankees and Twins in the American League.

Their offense is still formidable, with an All-Star at nearly every position. But it was their pitching staff that allowed them to win a franchise-record 107 games last season and represent the AL in the World Series for the second time in three years.

That staff will now be tested without Verlander, and his loss may be too much for the Astros to overcome to remain contenders in 2020.