| 15 October 2011
(Creative Commons/Keith Allison)
Justin Verlander is one hell of a pitcher. I'd argue he's the best in the game, just slightly above Roy Halladay. Verlander throws 100+ miles per hour complemented by a knee-buckling curveball and a 90 mph changeup.
He was absolutely tremendous this season. He won the pitching triple crown, leading the American League in wins (24), strikeouts (250) and ERA (2.40).
But why in the world is everyone talking about his ALCS Game 5 win Thursday night as if he is Don Larsen?
Verlander picked up the win by pitching 7 1/3 innings and sriking out eight Rangers. But he also gave up eight hits, walked three batters and gave up four runs, including the two-run homer that Nelson Cruz smacked on Verlander's final pitch of the game.
That final pitch was pitch number 133 for Verlander and it was 100 mph. That doesn't change the fact that the pitch was traveling much faster as it headed out of the ballpark.
Verlander did just enough to pick up the win and he somewhat saved the Detroit bullpen, which was without its two top relievers Joaquin Benoit and Jose Valverde -- manager Jim Leyland said before the game that neither would be available due to their usage in the previous series games.
However, in the day after Verlander's performance, as Deadspin points out, everyone waxed poetically as if it was a brilliant performance. It was a mediocre performance on a big stage.
I played the game all my life, pitching collegiately. Having played in several "All-Star" and summer tournaments growing up, plus district and state tournaments in American Legion ball and conference tournaments in college, I know about playoffs and trying to save pitching.
To be honest, 133 pitches doesn't really impress me. I've faced a pitcher who threw 238 pitches in a game. It was in an American Legion tournament. The kid was the team's ace, a lefty heading to Southern University after the summer, and his team was short on pitching. I wasn't impressed by that performance either because he lasted only into the sixth inning, going to a ridiculous amount of three-ball counts and walking seven or eight batters.
I don't care how many pitches you throw. In 1920, Leon Cadore and Joe Oeschger each pitched complete games in a 26-inning, 1-1 tie between the Brooklyn Robins and Boston Braves. It's estimated they threw more than 300 pitches each.
What matters is that Cadore and Oeschger each allowed only one run. The performance is what matters and Justin Verlander didn't have a tremendous performance.
A tremendous performance is what my college roommate and best friend did the final week of our senior year. Against the then-No. 3 team in the nation and eventual national runners-up, he threw 170 pitches, throwing 8 2/3 innings, allowing only one earned run. He then came back six days later and left with the lead in the seventh inning after throwing 102 pitches in our second game of the conference tournament. But most impressive was that he came back in the championship game of the tournament the VERY NEXT DAY and picked up the win, throwing two innings in relief.
Granted, we only played Division III baseball, but that was the biggest stage for us and that performance was impressive.
In his 2003 playoff debut, rookie Mark Prior threw 133 pitches in a complete game 3-1 win. That's an impressive performance. Roy Halladay's postseason debut was impressive last year. He saved the bullpen but only threw 104 pitches -- none of which went for base hits.
Those performances were worth salivating over. Verlander's? Not so much...yet even the venerable Tom Verducci claimed, "It was a game Bob Gibson would have been proud of."
Really, Tom? No, it wasn't.
Gibson would have been pissed off that he gave up four runs and that he didn't finish the game, much less the eighth inning.
Tom Scocca at Deadspin outlines the differences between Verlander's outing and Gibson's postseason greatness:
• Justin Verlander allowed more runs in 7.1 innings last night than Bob Gibson allowed in the entire 1967 World Series, in which Gibson started three games and pitched all 27 innings of them.
• Justin Verlander, on the night he saved the Tigers bullpen, pitched 7.1 innings and required 1.2 innings of relief. Bob Gibson, in nine career postseason starts, pitched 81 innings and required 1 inning of relief.
• Bob Gibson won one postseason game by a 7-5 score, the way Verlander did last night. It was Game Seven of the 1964 World Series. Statistically, it was slightly better than Verlander's game—a complete game, 5 runs, 3 walks, 9 strikeouts—and it was the worst game Gibson ever pitched in the postseason.
Verducci also said this was Verlander's postseason masterpiece to solidify himself as "one of the elite pitchers of his generation" saying he pitched "a game for the ages."
Give me a break. Four earned runs in 7 1/3 is a game for the ages? What the hell was Halladay's no-hitter last year then? Quit with the poetic waxing and hyperbole. Thanks.
Shotgun Spratling
