October nemesis Verlander up next
HOUSTON — Justin Verlander has gone up against the Yankees 18 times in the regular season, four more in the playoffs, but the Houston righthander didn’t pitch against them this year. That makes the former AL Cy Young Award winner curious about this offense, because for Game 2 of the ALCS on Saturday, the only players in the lineup who started the last time Verlander took the mound versus the Yankees on June 11, 2016, figure to be Brett Gardner, Starlin Castro and perhaps Jacoby Ellsbury.
“I haven’t faced any of them,” Verlander said before the Astros beat the Yankees 2-1 in Game 1 of the ALCS on Friday at Minute Maid Park. “I don’t know my thoughts. It’s kind of a wait-and-see and once I make my pitches to them then you just kind of adjust on the fly.”
Gardner, Todd Frazier, Chase Headley, Matt Holliday and Didi Gregorius have hit Verlander well, while Aaron Hicks, Starlin Castro and Ellsbury have not.
Gary Sanchez, Aaron Judge and Greg Bird haven’t seen Verlander yet, so both sides will be feeling out the other, with the Yankees’ young hitters having to battle one of the top pitchers in the American League.
“He’s a fierce competitor,” manager Joe Girardi said. “Besides the great stuff he has … he’s going to fight and fight and fight. And that’s who he is. Our job is to fight him back. It’s to match his competition level and make him work.”
That doesn’t figure to be easy, especially with the way Verlander has performed since his trade from Detroit to the Astros on Aug. 31.
In five regular season starts for Houston, Verlander went 5-0 with a 2.69 ERA. He helped the Astros knock off the Red Sox in the ALDS with a strong outing in Game 1 and finished them off with 2 2/3 innings out of the bullpen in their Game 4 series-clinching win.
“His production speaks for itself,” Houston manager A.J. Hinch said. “I think what he’s done on the field for us, he’s been one of the hottest pitchers on the planet.’’
Verlander last met the Yankees in the postseason during Detroit’s four-game sweep in the 2012 ALCS, when he dominated Game 3, holding the Yankees to one run in 8 ¹/3 innings. The Tigers won, 2-1, as Verlander outdueled Phil Hughes and five Yankees relievers.
Only Gardner, though, remains from that lineup.
Verlander’s postseason experience has given his new teammates added confidence.
“I remember we had a day off the next day [following the trade] and I was like, ‘I don’t want to have a day off, I want to go play now. I want to see Justin with the Astros uniform,’ ” Jose Altuve said. “It’s not a secret that we had a good team before trading for him, but after we did that it’s like, ‘OK, here we go.’ ”