MLB Analyst Believes the Astros Can Still Turn Their Season Around

Not all hope is lost for the Houston Astros, at least according to some.

A general view of a Houston Astros hat and glove in the dugout during the fifth inning against the Minnesota Twins at Target Field. | Jesse Johnson-Imagn Images

Few people have jumped on the Houston Astros' bandwagon in 2026. In many ways, there really hasn't been a reason to. The team has looked mediocre to dreadful for the entirety of the campaign thus far, with little room to find any sort of hope that the future would bring promise. But the 2026 baseball season has been strange in many ways, and it appears that some believe it's bound to get even nuttier.

Even though the Astros are in fourth place in the American League West with a 31-37 record and are currently on the outside looking in at the wild-card picture, Ben Verlander — the brother of future Hall of Famer Justin Verlander — said that he thinks this Houston squad can surprise folks down the stretch.

"I think the Houston Astros are going to be a 2026 playoff team," Verlander said on MLB Now on June 8.

Verlander cited that the Astros possess Yordan Alvarez, the player he believes is most likely to win the AL MVP Award at the end of the season. He also mentioned that Christian Walker has emerged as the player the Astros needed him to be last season, a fact that could contribute to Houston making a run toward October baseball.

Health Could Be the Difference

"I think the Houston Astros are going to be a 2026 playoff team."

- @BenVerlander pic.twitter.com/VPqhjVcdmE

— MLB Now (@MLBNow) June 8, 2026

Neither of those factors, however, are really why the Astros are going to make the playoffs.

"But the big thing for the Astros has been health," Verlander continued. "For two years, they have been a shell of themselves. But now you're going to get back Hunter Brown soon, the entire rotation starting to come back. ... Yainer Diaz behind the plate is going to come back. Offense hasn't been their issue. ... It's been the fact that they're the worst pitching in all of the American League. And now they're going to get healthy."

The tenets of Verlander's argument are sound. The Astros have been hit with a cascade of injuries that have hampered them from competing at a high level for quite some time. Getting injured starters like Brown back in the fold will do wonders. Alvarez and Walker are playing out of their minds. The American League is weak, giving runway for a struggling squad like Houston to backdoor its way into the dance.

One Major Problem Remains

Houston Astros second baseman Jose Altuve. | Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images

And yet there's still something that's missing from Verlander's assessment: the vibes, despite all the good juju that appears to be on the horizon, are just not great at the moment.

Sure, vibes alone don't make or break an operation. There are plenty of examples of teams with poor mojo making the postseason. But the Astros in particular have been so miserable when it comes to this aspect of the sport that it's hard to see how everything begins to click into place again.

So while the paper says that everything should magically begin to come into place here soon, everything else is pointing in the opposite direction. The Astros might make the postseason, proving Verlander right in the process, but they could definitely still crash and burn — just like they're projected to do right now.