Homers, Astros beat Mets 2-0
in `19. My fastball has playing pretty well, getting a lot of weak contact, kind of infield popups, high popups. Swing and miss is a little bit down. It's just interesting. I feel largely the same, but the stuff seems to be playing a little bit different.”
Before the game, Baker compared Verlander's game-day bearing to Andy Messersmith, Don Sutton and Jerry Reuss — they were Dodgers stars in Dusty's playing days.
“He didn't say `good morning' the other day — he's ready,” Baker said.
Brandon Nimmo doubled on Verlander's first pitch, and Pete Alonso walked with two outs to put runners at the corners.
Jeff McNeil fouled off a full-count slider and then a fastball. Verlander shook off Castro four times and followed with one of only three changeups he would throw all day, an outside pitch McNeil chased for strike three.
“It's gotten me out of a couple jams year,” Verlander said. “In my mind, it was screaming changeup. And I've been working on it, and I'm like, all right, well, if there's ever a time, here it is.”
That started a streak of 12 consecutive hitters retired, including Dominic Smith on a grounder off a game-high 97 mph fastball that ended a 12-pitch at-bat in the fifth. Verlander retired 19 of his last 20 batters, allowing only Ender Enciarte's infield hit on a checked-swing dribbler in the fifth.
New York's Taijuan Walker gave up four hits in a season-high 7 1/3 innings — he was replaced with leadoff man Jose Altuve coming up and has not faced a batter four times in a game since 2017.
Kyle Tucker singled leading off the ninth against Drew Smith (1-2) and Castro, who began the day hitting .095 with one RBI in 74 at-bats, homered on a belt-high slider with two outs. Ryan Pressly pitched a perfect bottom half for his 16th save in 19 chances, finishing the Astros' second two-game sweep of the Mets in a nine-day span.
In the clubhouse after the game, Verlander said he adopted his game-day attitude in 2009 in order to focus.
“This kind of like intensity/anger, whatever you want to call it, started from the second I opened my eyes in the morning,” he said.
Now he waits until heading the ballpark to morph into game mode because “it got a bit tiresome there after a few years of doing it." His goal was to “be less angry, especially with my family. That's a big benefit.”
His wife, model Kate Upton, is appreciative along with 3-year-old daughter Genevieve.
“As I've gotten older, I've been able to kind of like just have this more calm demeanor during the day," Verlander said. "I'm able to kind of enjoy my wife and my kid and spend some time with them. But I know that she would tell you that I'm still different, quite a bit, on start day and really kind of lock it in on my way to the park.”