Verlander Filets Rays, Astros Take Game 1

A ribbon-cutting lead off walk by Austin Meadows was perhaps the closest the Tampa Bay Rays came to threatening Justin Verlander and the Houston Astros this afternoon, who soundly took Game 1 of the ALDS from the Wild Card-winners.

Two pitches after Meadows’ walk, Tommy Pham rolled over a 1-0 slider that Houston turned into a double play — José Altuve made a great adjustment on an inaccurate feed from Alex Bregman to complete it — one of the game’s two twin killings off the bat of Pham, stifling Tampa Bay in the first. They never truly threatened again, and Verlander penned another chapter of what is already an epic postseason career: seven innings, one hit, three walks and eight strikeouts, enough for him to pass former Astro Roger Clemens for third on the all-time playoff strikeout list. With 175 career postseason punchies, Verlander is sneaking up on Andy Pettite (193) and John Smoltz (199) like a freight train.

Though he fell behind in counts early on, Verlander delivered several well-executed breaking balls when he did. Back-to-back changeups to Ji-Man Choi set the first baseman up to strike out to end the first, while the slider propelled Verlander through the next two innings, during which he faced the minimum. No Rays baserunner reached second base against Verlander, and aside from a fat 1-0 slider missed by Willy Adames in his first at-bat, they really weren’t given much chance to.

Verlander’s on-mound counterpart, the condor-like righty Tyler Glasnow, matched him in the linescore early on, but labored. Glasnow opened with an eight-pitch first inning that included two loud outs, then threw more than 20 pitches in the second and third. His stuff — a bunch of naturally-cutting fastballs, none beneath 95 mph, and two that touched 100, and an ungodly curveball — was electric, but he walked three in 4.1 innings and surrendered six balls in play hit in excess of 95 mph.

After Glasnow wiggled out of trouble in the second (Robinson Chirinos hit a two-out, laser liner to Pham in left) and the third (Glasnow pumped past Yordan Alvarez, ending with 99 on the black, and stranded two), he had an easy fourth inning that made it seem as if he was settling in for a few more smooth frames. But that’s when things spiraled out of control for the Rays.

A leadoff walk to Josh Reddick and a two-run shot by Altuve, who got around on a 98 mph fastball at the top of the zone, chased Glasnow with one out in the fifth. With two of the next three hitters batting from the left side, the Rays looked to rookie lefty Brendan McKay, he of two career big league relief appearances. He was greeted with a first-pitch single by Michael Brantley, then a wall-ball double by Bregman, which ended with the oft-injured Pham having to walk off discomfort created by colliding with the face of the Crawford Boxes. Another pitching change brought in Chaz Roe, who induced what looked like an inning-ending pop-up that hung in the air high over shallow right field. Three Rays defenders — first baseman Choi, second baseman Brandon Lowe, and right fielder Austin Meadows — converged with collective uncertainty, and the ball clanged off of Lowe’s glove and onto the Minute Maid turf, leading to two more runs.

With a 4-0 lead, Verlander held the door closed for the next two innings, capping his outing with this seventh inning:

• Choi: 93 with tail away for a strike, slider foul, slider foul, a wasted changeup, 95 fouled into the catcher’s glove
• Diaz: twice painted 94 away, curveball for an ugly swinging K
• Lowe: fouled off 93, waved at a back foot curveball, 95 away, 96 up, curveball foul tip into glove

Things got a little dicey for the Astros in the eighth when Ryan Pressly relieved Verlander and surrendered four hits — a shift-beating grounder by Joey Wendle who’d score on a pinch-hit, opposite-field single by Eric Sogard, who then scored on a gap double by Meadows, who moved to third on a dribbling infield single by Pham — before Will Harris came in to put out the fire. But because Houston had padded their lead already, the Rays’ rally was only enough to make one sit up in one’s chair rather than slide to its edge. In the bottom of the seventh, Bregman had a situational steal of second on a 1-2 splitter from Oliver Drake; Drake hung a splitter to Alvarez on the very next pitch, and Alvarez lined it into right center to plate Bregman.

If there’s a silver lining to that string of hits, it’s that it eventually forced Houston to use closer Roberto Osuna, though Osuna hadn’t thrown in nearly a week and may have pitched all the same. The Astros lead the series 1-0. Game 2 is tomorrow, featuring another dandy of a pitching matchup between AL Cy Young favorite Gerrit Cole and reigning AL Cy Young winner Blake Snell.

Ephemera

Austin Meadows reached base three times today (twice via walk and once on a crushed double), and though he arguably should have taken charge on the popup that became the ultimately-moot, fifth inning Brandon Lowe error, I think he’s emerging as Tampa Bay’s best position player.

Eric Sogard has barely played since fouling a ball off of his foot on September 6, and wasn’t on the Rays’ Wild Card roster. He had a pinch hit single and remained in the game to play third base, but he looked hobbled running the bases on the Meadows’ double and may be limited in the series.

As we’ve frequently seen from Houston’s playoff opponents in recent years, the Rays’ battery used multiple signs to call pitches, even without runners on base. Catchers often change or use multiple signs when there’s a runner on second base because the runner can see what the catcher is putting down and relay that info to the hitter, but teams are either so paranoid (or so convinced) that Houston has ways of telling hitters what’s coming somehow that it’s changing their behavior.