Verlander May Miss A's While Puk May Be Back in Time for Astros

A lat strain may keep Astros' ace Justin Verlander from facing the Athletics the first week of the season, but the A's A.J. Puk has been cleared to start throwing Tuesday.

Could it be that the A’s will come out ahead of the Astros in the season-opening injury race starting pitchers seem mired in?

Maybe. The A’s will be without A.J. Puk who, depending on the way Bob Melvin would have set up his starting rotation coming out of the gate, might have started against defending American League West champion Houston when the A’s follow the Twins to the Coliseum for the second series of the season in Oakland.

And Monday came the news out of Houston that reigning Cy Young Award winner Justin Verlander, the ace of the Astros’ staff the last 2½ seasons, may be out for the first week or more of the season.

At the same time, the news out of the A’s camp Monday was that Puk has been cleared to resume throwing Tuesday, after being shut down because of some shoulder discomfort. Will he be ready to start against the Astros or will he be in the bullpen? It’s not clear based on what manager Bob Melvin told the club's media, but Puk could be ready to pitch out of the bullpen, at least.

Verlander told the Houston Chronicle that “it would probably take a miracle to be back by Opening Day,” after an MRI taken Monday morning revealed a mild lat strain that will force him to shut down for the immediate future.

Verlander is 14-7 for his career against the A’s and 5-2 the last two seasons with a 2.58 ERA when facing Oakland. It’s not like the A’s can’t beat him. They did it twice last year, each time squeaking out 3-2 wins.

The fact is that it’s easier to beat the Astros when Verlander isn’t on the mound, and it’s beginning to look like he will miss them at least once. The A’s were a reasonably competitive 13-18 against the AL West champs the last two years when Verlander wasn’t on the mound.

To be sure, the A’s go to Houston the final week of April, and Verlander likely would be good to go by then, but Oakland will take any advantage it can in its effort to break Houston’s stranglehold on the division title, which it has won three consecutive seasons.

Verlander had a similar injury in the spring of 2015 when he was with Detroit. He opened that season on the Tigers’ disabled list and didn’t make his first start until June 13. While that time the injury cost him about two months of the season, he seems confident this isn’t 2015.

“I know I feel better than I did then, physically,” Verlander told the paper. “That’s kind of a lot of feedback I’ve gotten about lat strains is the scans can say a lot of stuff, the MRIs can say a lot of stuff, but one of the most important things is how you feel physically. I’m trying to be very truthful with myself through this process and I’m trying to recall also how I felt in '15. I definitely feel better this time than then.”