(SportsRadio 610) - Justin Verlander captured that elusive win in the World Series after grinding out a critical five innings Thursday in the Astros' 3-2 win over the Phillies.
The 17-year veteran has appeared in the World Series for two different franchises. In his ninth and what could be his final start for the Astros, Verlander earned his first victory in the most important game.
“They put me in the cart and rolled me in the shower and just doused me with all sorts of stuff,” Verlander said. “And it was one of the best feelings in my career.”
Just 48 hours removed from that memorable start in game five, as the series shifts back to Houston with the Astros up 3-2, Verlander and the Astros have the opportunity to capture the city’s second World Series title in six seasons Saturday night at Minute Maid Park.
One might suspect that getting doused with beer and champagne after clinching another title for the city would rival that feeling of an individual accomplishment.
While the two-time Cy Young Award winner had put his team in position to win World Series games before, Astros manager Dusty Baker acknowledged that his ace finally earning a favorable decision in the fall classic etched his name in the memories of baseball fans forever.
"That’s what people remember," Baker said. "I mean, I got 2,000 wins and all they talk about is I haven’t won the World Series yet. You know? So what’s the difference? You know what I mean? So, yeah it matters. It matters to the people. It matters to us."
Still a rookie in 2006, after making just two starts in 2005, Verlander won 17 games and helped the Detroit Tigers to the 102nd World Series that season against the St. Louis Cardinals.
Verlander started both games one and five against the Cardinals, who ended up winning the series 4-1.
The Cardinals saw two different versions of the future Hall of Famer in that series, as Verlander struggled in game one, allowing seven runs, six of them earned, in five innings of work, losing 7-2.
In game five, Verlander held the Cardinals to three runs, only one of them earned, for six innings. Unfortunately for him, the Cardinals saw the same version of the Tigers, who committed two costly errors in one of the sloppiest World Series ever played, losing the game 4-2 and the series.
The Tigers made seven errors in the series, at least one in every game including five by Tiger pitchers alone. Verlander, who made two for the series, committed a catastrophic throwing error in the fourth inning of game five, which proved too costly to overcome.
Many players never get the chance to play on the game's biggest stage. Verlander has been fortunate to have been an integral part of six different teams to play in the World Series.
Yet, not once before Thursday night had Verlander walked off the mound with a lead or in position to earn a win for his team in the series.
He’s had some rough outings. Some good, some bad, only four quality starts in the nine he’s made for a career in the series, spanning 16 seasons.
However, it is the last one that he’ll remember most fondly.
Walking toward the Astros dugout and fist pumping as the ball landed in Yordan Alvarez’s glove for the final out of the fifth, after a grueling and nerve wracking 10-pitch at-bat against Nick Castellanos, Verlander was closer than he’d ever been before to clinching a victory in the series with his team leading in the game, 2-1.
What must have been behind every single one of those pitches during that marathon of an at-bat against Castellanos, to that fist pump as he walked off the mound, was not just about being so close to accomplishing a personal accolade that had escaped him for so many years.
Rather, it was for the chance his manager gave him to do it.
It was for the absence a player feels when they’re unable to contribute to the team, that Verlander himself must have felt after tearing his ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) in 2020.
Not being able to help his team on the field, that missed dates with destiny in consecutive years, that he spent recovering and rehabbing his right arm after undergoing Tommy John surgery, at age 37, to finally being able to not only return, but put together one of the greatest seasons on a mound in baseball history.
That’s what kind of grit was behind every one of those pitches.
Dusty Baker probably felt he had lived and died a thousand lives during that Verlander-Castellanos 10-pitch battle.
And now, with the Astros leading the series 3-2, as the series shifts back to Houston for game six Saturday evening, Baker is closer than ever before to clinching his first World Series title in his 25th season as a manager.
Baker led the San Francisco Giants to the series in 2002. Holding a 3-2 advantage then, the Giants had to play the final two games on the road in Anaheim. In game six, the Giants blew a 5-0 lead in the seventh inning and lost 6-5.
In an anticlimactic game seven, the damage was done before the end of the third inning. The Angels built a 4-1 lead to that point and that wound up as the final.
The heartbreak after leading a team all year, getting to the biggest stage, be in total control and just nine outs away from a champagne celebration, to not.
That is a special kind of hurt.
Yet, 20 years later, 73-year-old Baker has the chance to capture that elusive title.
By the end of the weekend, Verlander and Baker can forever abandon their previous shortcomings in the season’s final series from years past and instead, be forever remembered as champions.
Shaun Bijani has spent the last 16 years covering the Houston sports scene for SportsRadio 610. Follow him on Twitter @ShaunBijani.
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