Tonight will mark the third time since the advent of the Cy Young Award that two past winners are meeting in the World Series. Justin Verlander takes his dominating stuff to the Bay to take on Barry Zito and the San Francisco Giants in an important opening game.
A total of 20 of the last 25 World Series Champions have won the first game. The 2002 Giants were one of the five teams to go on to lose after taking the initial game when they went down in seven against the Los Angeles Angels.
That’s just history, not much to look at here.
Speaking of history, Barry Zito laid down the gauntlet against the St. Louis Cardinals in Game 5 of the NLCS Friday night. He pitched 7.2 shutout innings in the elimination game to send the series back to San Francisco. Zito, who walked four in just as many innings in his last start against the Cincinnati Reds in the LDS, only walked one, throwing 73 strikes compared to 41 balls in the stunning effort.
San Francisco will need a similar type of performance tonight if they plan on besting Justin Verlander, the absolute best pitcher in the galaxy right now. Detroit’s ace has given up just two runs and 10 hits in 24.1 inning this postseason, winning all three of his starts. Opponents are batting .115 against him during the 2012 playoffs.
Verlander’s dominance doesn’t end there either. 48 of the 73 outs (66 percent) that he has recorded have either been strikeouts or infield groundouts. An absolutely amazing stat. More importantly, his WHIP stands at 0.62 in his three playoff starts this year.
Needles to say, San Francisco’s lineup has a difficult task ahead of itself.
Verlander did face multiple Giants’ hitters as the starter for the American League in the All-Star game back in July. Definitely not a good outing for the reigning CY Young Award Winner. He gave up five runs in just one inning, walking two and yielding four hits. All three Giants that faced Verlander in that game reached base with Pablo Sandoval ripping him for a three-run bases clearing triple.
In the end, Verlander ended up costing Detroit home-field advantage against the very same Giants. There goes any talk of the MLB All-Star Game not meaning anything.
But I digress. On to the matchups for this pivotal Game 1.
Really not much of a sample size here as it relates to Giants hitters going up against Verlander. Buster Posey and Pablo Sandoval have yet to face him during the regular season in their careers. Meanwhile, Marco Scutaro and Hunter Pence are a combined 6-for-29 (.207) in their careers against Verlander. Aubrey Huff, who probably won’t see regular action until this series switches over to the AL ballpark, has the second-most at-bats against Verlander, behind the aforementioned Scutaro. However, Huff has not had much success against the talented starter. He is 3-for-17 with zero RBIs.
Overall, San Francisco hitters have faced Verlander a total of 57 times and have just four RBI’s with zero homers. Once again, the sample size really isn’t here.
While Verlander was dominating at home this season, he was definitely a different pitcher on the road. Detroit’s ace won just eight of his 18 starts away from Comerica, boasting a 3.57 ERA and 1.16 WHIP in the process. At home, Verlander enjoyed a 9-2 record with a 1.65 ERA.
The sample size is much greater for Tigers’ hitters against Zito, but they haven’t had much success either. Prince Fielder and Miguel Cabrera are a combined 5-for-26 (.192 AVG) with just one homer and seven RBIs in their careers against the lefty.
Omar Infante has had the most at-bats of any Detroit hitter in his career, but is just 3-for-20 in the process. No Tigers’ batter is hitting over .250 against the Giants southpaw. Overall, Detroit is 16-for-84 (.191 AVG) against Zito.
On an even more positive note for the Giants, they have won each of Zito’s last 13 starts dating back to early-August. That is definitely something to keep an eye on. ZIto’s home ERA is a straight 4.00 in 17 starts this season. However, the veteran possesses a just a 30-35 career record at AT&T Park.
29-year veteran umpire Gerry Davis will be calling balls and strikes tonight. Verlander is 1-0 with a 6.57 ERA when Davis is behind home for his starts. Meanwhile, Zito is 1-2 with a 6.05 ERA in six starts with the veteran ump behind the plate.
Prediction
Some suggested that San Francisco might just want to look past Game 1. In essence, start the series tomorrow evening. While that is probably more of a tongue-and-cheek suggestion, Verlander has been as dominating as any pitcher in MLB over the course of the last two seasons.
In fact, comparisons should be drawn to Randy Johnson’s 2001 and 2002 campaigns or even as far back as what Dave Stewart did in 1990 with the Oakland Athletics. This is how historically good Verlander has been.
Zito will have to match, or come close, to his last start in order for San Francisco to have a chance to pull this one out. With that in mind, it is important to note that a win by the Giants here could pretty much indicate that they are the favorites to bring home a second World Series Championship in three years. This means that the pressure is on Detroit to pull out a game they are expected to win. After all, losing Game 1 with Verlander on the hill wouldn’t bode well for their chances moving forward in the series.
In the end, I am going to go with the best pitcher on Earth in a close 2-1 or 3-2 game. Tigers take the opener.