Verlander Shines for Astros in Game 1 Victory

One of the storylines of this postseason has been the amount of rest — or lack thereof — each team is getting due to the new expanded playoff schedule. While the first round bye generated plenty of gripes from fans of the top teams in the National League, the Astros and Yankees had no such trouble advancing despite sitting out the Wild Card round. The American League teams even had an extra day off during the Division Series, but a couple of rain delays created scheduling chaos for the Yankees and Guardians. The Yankees entered the Championship Series having played three straight days over the weekend; they traveled from New York to Cleveland without the benefit of a travel day in the middle of that stretch. Then the second rainout of that series forced them to play on Tuesday, the day before the ALCS was scheduled to begin.

It’s understandable, then, that the Yankees began the third round of the playoffs looking a little weary. Their batters wound up striking out 17 times, while the contact-heavy approach of their pitchers led to their staff notching just two strikeouts. The Astros, on the other hand, hadn’t played since their 18-inning thriller in Seattle and had the benefit of kick off the series with their rotation stacked exactly the way they wanted. With New York’s fourth best starter lined up against Justin Verlander, the odds were never going to be in the Yankees’ favor, even if they had been well rested.

After allowing 10 hits and six runs in his Game 1 Division Series start, Verlander was looking to bounce back in just his second playoff start since 2019. Despite posting career-bests in ERA and FIP during the regular season — likely earning him his third Cy Young award — some of his peripherals weren’t as strong as you might expect. His strikeout rate was the lowest it’s been since 2017, the same year he was traded to Houston from Detroit. Instead of blowing batters away with his fantastic fastball and deadly breaking stuff, he used pinpoint command to curtail nearly all hard contact against him.

During his first three and half years as an Astro, he allowed 70 home runs in 74 starts. In 2022, he allowed just 12 home runs in 28 starts, and ended the regular season with 10 straight games without a dinger allowed. His best pitch in his arsenal is his slider. Not only is he able to generate swings and misses with the pitch, opposing batters managed a pitiful .211 wOBA and a .348 expected wOBA on contact against it this year. In the second inning of Game 1, facing the red-hot Harrison Bader, he allowed just the fourth home run off his slider this season, a solo shot that put the Yankees ahead early:

Verlander had to deal with a fair bit of traffic during the opening innings of the game. A hit batter and a throwing error put two on with two outs in the first, a one-out single followed Bader’s home run in the second, and a walk and a double put runners on second and third with one out in the third. With the Yankees threatening to break the game open, Verlander buckled down and struck out Josh Donaldson and Matt Carpenter to escape the jam. He was unhittable from that point forward, collecting seven of his 11 strikeouts from the fourth inning onwards.

Meanwhile, after using their best pitchers to get through the end of the Division Series, the Yankees were forced to turn to Jameson Taillon to start this series. The Astros made a lot of loud contact off him early — the first four and seven of the first nine balls in play off him were hard hit — but he managed to hold the Astros to a single run in 4.1 innings of work. After allowing a one-out double to Jeremy Peña in the fifth, Clarke Schmidt was brought in to work through the heart of the Astros lineup. The Yankees intentionally walked Yordan Alvarez before Alex Bregman worked a walk to load the bases, but Schmidt managed to escape by inducing a weak groundball from Kyle Tucker for the inning-ending double play.

New York stuck with Schmidt in the sixth, a decision that proved to be their downfall. Yuli Gurriel led off the inning with a go-ahead home run on a 0-2 pitch and Chas McCormick made it 3-1 with another solo shot a couple of batters later. Even if none of them were the ideal choice for high-leverage work, it was a bit of a baffling move to leave Schmidt in when the Yankees had a number of relievers in their bullpen rested and ready to pitch. Manager Aaron Boone admitted as much in his postgame comments, saying, “We knew it was going to be a slog getting through those middle innings.” Schmidt had been pretty good out of the ‘pen during the regular season, but after narrowly escaping his jam in the fifth, Boone probably could have gone to one of his more seasoned relievers to start the sixth. Lou Trivino, Miguel Castro, or even the indefatigable Wandy Peralta might have made more sense, and the Yankees had added Frankie Montas to their ALCS roster to provide some length to the bullpen too; Trivino, Montas, and Castro would all see action after Schmidt’s exit, with Montas surrendering a run. Asking Schmidt to get three more outs at a critical point in the game seemed like a bridge too far for the taxed and depleted Yankees relief corps, and the team wound up paying the price.

Houston would tack on another run in the seventh off another solo home run, this time from Peña, his third extra-base hit of the game. The Yankees tried to make a game of it in the eighth. Rafael Montero struck out the first two batters of the inning but Anthony Rizzo blasted a home run to cut the deficit to two. Giancarlo Stanton followed with a single and Donaldson worked a walk to put the tying run on base. The Astros brought in their closer Ryan Pressly to shut the door and he struck out Carpenter to quell the uprising. The Yankees went quietly in the ninth inning and the Astros came away with the early advantage in the series. New York will try to get back on track with Luis Severino, while the Astros will turn to Framber Valdez in tonight’s Game 2.