THE PALLILOG
What’s on the line, and in the way of Justin Verlander’s Cy Young campaign
Jul 27, 2022, 12:34 pm
Justin Verlander is putting together an impressive season for Houston. Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images.
The Oakland A’s have been a giant steaming turd of a baseball team this season. They made the playoffs in 2018, 2019, and 2020, were a credible 86-76 last season, but in 2022 have been the worst team in the American League and are on pace for more than 100 losses. Their offense is a joke. It’d need a double dose of Viagra to rise to impotent. The team batting average is .214, only the Tigers score fewer runs. Aside: notice how much smarter a manager the Tigers’ A.J. Hinch was when he had the Astros’ roster? Back to Oakland. The A’s stadium situation is a long-running joke, and their owner John Fisher is more interested in landing a sweetheart ballpark/real estate deal either in Oakland or Las Vegas than he is in spending to field a competitive ballclub right now. Yet over their last seven head-to-head matchups, the win tote board reads Steaming Turd 5 Astros 2. Baseball! Monday and Tuesday nights as the worst in the AL A’s were confounding the Astros, the worst in the National League Nationals were beating the best in the NL Dodgers. Baseball!
If the Astros were predestined to come out of the All Star Break winning five of their first seven games, they sure won the right five. Sweeping the doubleheader from the Yankees has the Astros in prime position to snatch the top seed in the American League playoffs, sweeping three in Seattle crushed any delusional Mariners’ fantasy about mounting a run at the Astros in the AL West. Let’s see what General Manager James Click gets done by Tuesday’s trade deadline to upgrade a roster that while excellent overall has well documented clear weaknesses.
Justin Verlander chasing history
Justin Verlander’s next command performance should be Friday night at Minute Maid Park against the Mariners. Verlander sits at 13-3 with a 1.86 earned run average. At 39 years old. After Tommy John surgery. He is brilliant. Verlander doesn’t quite have the scary mound presence of long-limbed, mulleted Randy Johnson, or the often overtly beyond smoldering intensity of Roger Clemens. I mean, you can boil it down to the nicknames: Johnson “The Big Unit.” Clemens “The Rocket.” Verlander is “JV.” That’s unfortunate considering there is not a molecule about Verlander on the mound that is junior varsity.
Clemens holds the record with seven Cy Young Awards. Johnson is in second place with five. Verlander is taking dead aim at winning his third. He’s already a lock first ballot Hall of Famer but if you’ll think of Hall membership as being made up of concentric circles, Verlander makes a big move toward the innermost circles if he wins Cy number three. After Clemens and Johnson, Greg Maddux and Steve Carlton are next with four Cys apiece. Next comes a group of six to win three times: Sandy Koufax, Tom Seaver, Jim Palmer, Pedro Martinez, Clayton Kershaw, and Max Scherzer. Nothing but legends in that group. When Scherzer is the “weakest” link you have one heck of a club. I do not literally love Justin Verlander but I do love that he is acutely aware of baseball history, his place in it, and places he’d like to get. Winning a third Cy would be a doozy. Shane McClanahan has other ideas. Some may ask “Who?” More on him shortly.
There are 11 two-time Cy Young Award winners, all tremendous pitchers at their peaks obviously. Some are legends like Bob Gibson and Gaylord Perry. Tom Glavine and Roy Halladay are Cooperstown-enshrined. But several guys to win two Cys are not remotely close to Hall of Famers. Think Jacob deGrom, Corey Kluber, Tim Lincecum, and Denny McLain. Two others won twice and barely got a sniff in Hall of Fame balloting but for whom I think you can mount credible arguments. For Bret Saberhagen it's a shaky but not meritless case, for Johan Santana it's a pretty good case when compared to, gulp, Koufax.
The Cy Young Award was first given out in 1956. For its first eleven years only one winner was named for all of Major League Baseball. 1967 started one recipient per league.
All eyes on the competition
As for that McClanahan fellow. The 25 year old Tampa Bay Rays’ lefthander has been awesome this season, better than Verlander by a number of criteria including earned run average and ERA+ (which adjusts for ballparks pitched in), strikeouts, and strikeout-to-walk ratio. But the margins are all slim. McClanahan pitches for a clearly inferior team (meaning Rays vs. Astros) with the inferior defense backing him. The guy has been spectacular. It’s the 2022 Cy Young Award so Verlander should get no additional credit for his comeback, there’s a Comeback Player of the Year Award for that. Still, some voters may factor it in if it’s a really close call at the end. As a rookie last season McClanahan threw 123 and a third innings. He may top that total in his next start. We’ll see how he holds up the remaining two-plus months. How Verlander holds up is a question also, but if anything he’s been getting stronger. Last five starts: 5-0, ERA 0.79. The Astros adding additional days rest between several of Verlander's starts was/is a smart luxury the Astros can afford.
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Left-hander Mitchell Parker threw seven shutout innings, and Luis Garcia Jr. had three singles and two RBIs and the Washington Nationals beat the Houston Astros 6-0 on Sunday.
The Nationals have won three of their past four series after starting the season 2-6.
After allowing two runs over five innings last Monday in his major league debut, a 6-4 win over the L.A. Dodgers, Parker (2-0) was even more effective in his second major league start, allowing three hits, striking out eight and walking none, throwing 57 of his 73 pitches for strikes.
“He has so much poise," Nationals manager Dave Martinez said. "He’s ready. He gets the ball, ready to get back on the mound. I watched him today. He threw a ground ball. The play was made and he got right on the mound and was holding his glove up as if, ‘hey, come on, give me the ball, like I’m ready to get back on there’. It was cool to watch. He understands what he wants to do.”
Parker mixed his 85-87 mph splitter, 81-82 mph curveball and 92 mph four-seam fastball. He struck out Jose Altuve and Jeremy Peña a combined four times. Dylan Floro and Matt Barnes each added a scoreless inning for Washington.
Parker was thrilled to be able to throw the splitter for strikes, something that did not come as easy against the Dodgers.
“100 percent, yeah," Parker said. "We were able to get in there for more swings and misses. They were more competitive pitches. Going to keep working on it, seeing if we can keep it where it is at.”
Astros right-hander Hunter Brown replaced scheduled starter Cristian Javier, who was scratched from Sunday’s series finale with neck discomfort. Javier was placed on the 15-day injured list retroactive to April 14, and right-hander Spencer Arrighetti was called up from Triple-A Sugar Land.
Manager Joe Espada said they have not decided yet on an MRI for Javier.
“Neck discomfort, started a few days ago,” Espada said. “He tried to work through it but just couldn’t happen. This kind of just came out of nowhere. So, we are going to see what happens here.”
Brown allowed three runs and three hits and a walk in the first but then settled down, lasting four innings when his pitch count reached 84.
“Even in the first I felt like made some good pitches," Brown said. "Came to the outing prepared. Kind of did what I wanted to and it just didn’t fall our way there.”
García Jr.’s two-run single to center field highlighted the three-run first inning for the Nationals.
“We try to score every inning,' Garcia Jr. said through a translator. "But definitely when we score the first inning it gives you a different kind of sense of confidence throughout the game and it carries on through the games a different feeling.”
Joey Meneses had a bases-loaded two-run single to right field off Shawn Dubin in the fifth to make it 5-0. Nick Senzel hit his first home run of the season in the sixth to close out the scoring.
The Astros' tailspin continues, having lost five of their past six and nine of their past 12.
“It is not ideal in the situation that we are in but we are in this situation,” Espada said. “And we got to fight through this. We have guys in there who are capable of giving us innings and some of them are doing that. We are going back to playing the style of baseball that everyone sees the Astros play. We feel pretty good about the guys that we have in there to get us some good innings."
TRAINER’S ROOM
Astros left-hander Framber Valdez threw again Sunday and has a chance of starting one of the games in Chicago his week. “We will see how he feels,” Astros manager Joe Espada said. “Once we see how he feels, we will start talking about the possibilities if he can pitch in Chicago or not.”
Nationals catcher Keibert Ruiz said he is about “90 percent” recovered from the flu that placed him on the 10-day injured list on April 12. Nationals manager Dave Martinez said Ruiz will go on a rehab assignment this week to play a couple of games before returning to the club.
UP NEXT
Houston travels to Chicago to begin a three-game series against the Cubs on Tuesday. Espada confirmed JP France and Justin Verlander will start two of the games, but did not specify the order. Spencer Arrighetti, who was called up for Javier, is an option for the opener.
Washington has a day off before hosting the L.A. Dodgers on Tuesday night. Left-hander Patrick Corbin (0-3, 8.06 ERA) faces the Dodgers for the second consecutive start.