Verlander not quite vintage
In the end, Astros’ ace couldn’t do what he had done all season and in Game 1 of series
He was the last piece, the final keystone, the man without whom, in the memorable edifice that was the 2017 Houston Astros.
And on Thursday night at Minute Maid Park, Justin Verlander took the mound for the 2018 Astros as the man atop the battlements, the stopper, the final firebreak against elimination from the American League Championship Series.
But with no support from an offense gone flat, and with a couple of pitches gone bad against an opportunistic Red Sox team that may have inherited the mantle of destiny that has slipped from the Astros’ shoulders, it’s time for Verlander, and his teammates, to wait ’til next year after Boston advanced to the World Series with a 4-1 victory.
He did so, however, with a rueful smile and a quip when asked where he struggled on a night when the Red Sox scored their runs on two homers to the short porch in left field — a solo shot by J.D. Martinez in the third and a three-run job by Rafael Devers in the sixth.
“I struggled in the Crawford Boxes,” he said. “It’s funny. We’re playing the Red Sox, and the only two places those are hits are here and Fenway (Park).
“Other than that, they did a fantastic job of laying off my off-speed for the most part. They probably are one of the toughest battles top to bottom of any lineup I’ve faced all year.”
It was not without reason that he took the mound as the Astros’ best chance to turn things around.
Before allowing the homer to Martinez, Verlander had pitched 24 scoreless innings in postseason elimination games, including last year’s ALCS Game 6 against the Yankees and 2013 and 2012 starts with the Tigers, and was 4-1 in elimination games in five starts with a 1.21 ERA.
He also had dominated the Red Sox, going 5-0 against Boston in regular-season and postseason play, including this year’s Game 1 win at Fenway Park, the Astros’ only win of the series, and Game 1 of the 2017 Division Series.
History, though, didn’t matter against a lineup that, true to form, made him work early, loading the bases in the second with an error, a base hit and a walk, before Verlander struck out Mookie Betts to end the inning.
Martinez’s third-inning home run, which came after a 1-2 pitch on the corner that was called a ball by umpire Chris Guccione, was the first blow.
Of the strike that wasn’t, he said, “I thought Chris did a good job. That one, personally, I thought it was a strike. I’ve been known to be wrong from time to time. I thought it was really close, and I wanted it, but I thought Chris did a fantastic job. Those guys have been really good back there.”
Devers’ three-run homer into the Crawford Boxes, after Mitch Moreland’s double and Ian Kinsler’s base hit to right, was the clincher, but Verlander said the blow off the wall by Moreland, which was just out of the reach of Tony Kemp, was the one that really got to him.
“Devers put a decent swing on his,” Verlander said. “It was the Moreland one that was kind of debilitating. It was just over the left fielder to lead off an inning when we’re already down one. That was tough to deal with.”
Of the Moreland double, he said, “I saw Tony jump, and I was having flashbacks to the catch he made a couple of days ago and begging for that. But (Ian Kinsler) was able to punch one, and then there was a 330-foot popup for a three-run homer, and that’s all she wrote.”
Verlander allowed seven hits in six innings, his least effective appearance since the Astros’ dog days of August, with two walks and four strikeouts, his lowest total since a two-strikeout performance in which he allowed six runs in two innings Aug. 9 against the Mariners.
He threw 97 pitches, 69 for strikes, before leaving after the sixth.
A year ago, it was Verlander who materialized in the dugout late in Game 2 of the World Series, encouraging his teammates toward what became a memorable extra-inning win.
Thursday night, however, when the Astros’ ace faced a difficult outing against a relentless team, the comeback never came.
“We had a good season,” Verlander said. “We didn’t end up where we wanted to be. We lost to a great team. I said it last year. It’s kind of flip a coin in the playoffs. We were dealing with injuries and gave them a good fight, and it just wasn’t enough at the end.”