The Josh Innes Show - Random Thoughts: The Verlandy Man Can

Episode Date: November 3, 2022

Hi Friends! Here we are...Game 5. Tied series... Justin Verlander has had a very up and down post season existence. He's never won a World Series Game. This is everything. This is it. Verlander needs to go to the mound like this is the last time he's ever going to do it. This is why he's here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Well, tonight it's the Verlandi Man! Who can take a sunrise? Sprinkle it with dew. Cover it in chocolate and a miracle or two. The Verlandi Man can! Verlandi Man can! Here we are. Big day! Big day!

It is a huge day for the Verlandi man. It's time to exercise the demons, JB. The Verlandi man can. The Verlandi man can. Because he mixes up the stuff and makes the fills look bad. Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. So here's the situation. Justin Verlander has demons to exercise.

He does not have a win in World Series play. Now, that does not mean he has not pitched well in certain World Series games, but it does mean that he has not won, as an individual, a World Series game, and that dates back to his first World Series appearance in 2006 against St. Louis. He got blown up in Game 1 of that series, but then bounced back and went 6 and gave up 1-er and run in a game that was eventually lost 4-2. I believe that was the game, because I think I was at that game. That was the game where the relief pitcher, I forget who it was now, airmailed a throw to first base on a bunt,

and it kind of opened up a big inning for the Cardinals. Did that happen the same day as Granderson fell down in the outfield? I don't remember. But either way, Verlander bounced back after five innings of six-earned-run baseball come back and give up one earned run over six innings. So there's an example of bounce back. He only pitched in one World Series game in 2012, and he got beat up pretty good in that one, five earned runs over four innings. So two of his first three World Series starts of his career weren't too great. He didn't make it back to the World Series again until Houston 2017, where he was pretty good.

Six innings, three earned runs in Game 2 of the World Series that year. And in Game 6, that was the game we went to in L.A. with Mac and all his people. Mac flew us all out there for Game 6 on a whim. It was one of the most epic trips ever. And Verlander pitched well enough to win six innings, two hits. The one thing that stands out about Verlander in World Series games, and I don't know if it's just, and again, it's not fair to look at somebody's numbers from 12, 14, 16 years ago and go, okay, it means anything now.

I generally speaking don't do that, but I'm just doing this as a setup for a bigger picture thing here with Verlander. But if you look at it, once he gets to the World Series, you start getting shorter and shorter appearances from him. They don't leave him in there as long, and that might just be a product of Major League Baseball. You don't want to leave guys in there as long. You don't want to run the risk, so you pull guys. You've got a pre-planned move you're going to make that you planned two days before the game, so I get all that. But have you noticed that Verlander in the World Series does tend to pitch fewer innings? Now, his next game in the World Series, that game six in L.A., he gave up two in six innings. That's good enough to win a baseball game. But the Astros offense never got it going for him. That's another thing you have to look at in some of these games is say, okay, what kind of run support did the guy get? Sometimes it's just on him, right? Against the Cardinals in 06, game one, it doesn't matter how many runs

your offense scored, you gave up six, that's on you. You give up one earned run in game five of the World Series, your team gets you two runs. And you gave up three, but only one of them was earned. You lose that game because your offense doesn't get the job for you and your defense lets you down, obviously, with a couple of unearned runs in there. Then you go to the next World Series appearance, which was 2019. Neither one of those games were spectacular, but neither one of them were games where you go, OK, Verlander is no doubt the reason you lost. Now, he wasn't great in Game 2 versus Washington, and Washington blew that game out anyway. But you follow that up with Game 6, which the team also lost.

They lost 7-2 in Game 6, and he was, again, decent. Three earned runs, five innings,nings five hits he just wasn't great and then you fast forward to this year's world series and Verlander was bad in game uh one of this series and they lost six to five I mean that's the second time that Verlander's gotten tons of run support I guess it's the other way around he got blown up early in the Seattle game and they bounced back this time he got great run support and they bottomed out. But still, Verlander's had three starts in the postseason. One's been dreadful. One was bad, leaning towards dreadful.

And one was pretty damn strong where I think at one time he struck out seven or eight Yankees in a row and only went six in that game, but they won that game and he gave up one run. Now is the time for Verlander to get that first win. You don't know how many more of these you got left, man. You're in your late thirties. How many more do you want to have? How long are you going to pitch? You got a great life. You got a hot ass wife. We've all seen the pictures online of you really, what's the word I'm looking for, delivering a paint job to that ass. We've seen the videos. We've seen the pictures.

Your life pretty much rules. Wives hot, good family, Hall of Famer, Cy Young Award winner multiple times. You're going to win your second Cy Young in a row in a full season. You're a boss. Your life rules. How much longer do you need to pitch? And you've won the World Series, so it's not like that's missing. This isn't one of those scenarios where you go, ah, yes, this guy, his one thing that he's lacking for his career is winning that championship. This isn't a guy who you'll look back on and go, yeah, he was an all-time great, but he's not a Charles Barkley or a Marino or anybody like that. He's got his ring. He got it in 17.

You know that. We were all there. We all watched it. But this is your last chance to put a W next to your name in the World Series. The thing that's fascinating is the team has won World Series games he started despite pitching poorly. But if you go back as far as this year, they didn't win game one, the team lost. The team lost both of his starts in 2019. And in 27, they lost one of the starts. So that would mean he's lost, what, four of his last five. The team has lost four of the last five starts. Now, I'm not a big believer that past performance means anything. Different team, you're facing a different team, what's going on in your mind that day. I don't believe that something that happened for Verlander back in 2006 has any bearing on what's going to happen in game six or game five of this series this year.

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the world series which is six that justin verlander has only pitched and started one World Series game in which his team actually won the game. That's pretty wild. And that win was 7-6 in Game 2 of the Dodgers series in 2017. That's wild when you think about it. I mean, I know the playoffs is a different animal. I know that some people a different animal I don't believe that like I know that some people would tell you oh the big moment gets to people

no I don't buy that I mean Clayton Kershaw is a great pitcher I don't believe the big moments got to him versus the Cardinals in the three or four times he faced the Cardinals and pitched poorly some teams have your number sometimes the breaks don't go your way I mean we go back to Verlander in Detroit in that Cardinals series in Game 5. He only gave up one run in six innings, but they lost the game 4-2. Why? Because of errors. It cost them. So, you know, there's a lot of elements that go into that.

But it is fascinating that a guy who's such a legendary pitcher, who's got a 1.75 ERA this year, a guy that's a surefire Hall of Famer, that fucks a hot wife, has a great life, handsome guy. Everything's great for this guy seemingly. But the one thing he cannot do is win World Series games as an individual. Maybe tonight Verlander can change that. Maybe tonight is the night that we say, wow, Verlander dominated. Because one thing I can't say, outside of that stretch against the Yankees where he was just filthy, they couldn't hit him. He clearly wasn't dominant in Game 1 of the series against Seattle, was not good or dominant in Game 1 of the World Series.

Basically, if you want to be honest, that Yankees six innings, one run, 11 strikeouts game, kind of a playoff anomaly, kind of an outlier for Verlander over the last handful of years. And I know 2019 might not be the most fair way to gauge, maybe, but 2019, there were no dominant starts from Verlander in the postseason outside of game one against Tampa. After that, four runs, two runs, four runs, four runs, three runs. Before that in 2018, he was pretty good. Two runs, two runs, four runs. Outstanding for the most part throughout the entire 2017 postseason. That was like kind of peak, dominant, Verlander studliness.

He was a rock star. I think he even came out of the bullpen in a game in that season, I think. But it's been a while. Now, obviously, we saw the game against the Yankees. But I want to see dominant Verlander tonight. I don't want this to be a scenario where we go out and he's kind of laboring through the first inning and the Phillies have two on and one out. And he's got pressure on the bases. Fuck that. I want to see vintage peak Cy Young award winner

legend. I fuck a hot wife. I'm better than you and I know it. Get on these nuts. Suck on that Justin Verlander. I want Verlander. I want him to fuck shit up. I don't want the Phillies to have a chance tonight. They can hit, they can mash. We saw it. They did it on Verlander. We saw it in game one. But I want to see him go out there and I don't want, like, that's the ideal scenario. And I get that that's the ideal scenario for everybody. But for some people, it's not a realistic expectation. It is a realistic expectation that Justin Verlander, one of the greatest pitchers of all time, one of the top three or four pitchers of the last two decades,

it is a reasonable expectation that Justin Verlander goes out and pitches his ass off and doesn't get into trouble in the first couple innings. That is a reasonable expectation. That is a fair thing for you as a fan to want and to look forward to.

And I'm hoping that that's what we see. I'm hoping that we see him go out there and just like, that's what I want to tell you. And again, these are obvious. I hate to do obvious things like this, but I'm doing like a pregame show here saying obvious shit that you already know the answer to. And you already know this. take these fucking people out of the game early. They're going to be jazzed up. They didn't get a hit yesterday. They're going to be lubed up and ready to go. They got all day to sit back and think about what happened last night. They're ready to go. It is going to be boisterous. It is going to be loud. It's going to be obnoxious. Take them out of it early. You know another thing we've missed? We still haven't gotten that big early knock from Jose.

He's obviously been better at the plate the last handful of games. But what we're missing is first pitch, fastball, bang. Altuve over the boards. Or Altuve, a double to start the game. Now he got robbed of a double the other day by Castellanos. Like if he doesn't make that catch, he gets past him, it's probably a double. But that's what we've been missing. What we've been missing is a Jose Altuve, first pitch of the game, sitting dead red, left

field fence, home run, 1-0, crowd shocked right from the jump. That's the kind of matchup, that's the kind of thing we're going to need to see. be a fun one you know like this is in a way the last time Philly had a game like this at home in the playoffs with this kind of pitching matchup and the kind of cachet that goes with it was that 2005 I mean if you want to you know outside of this season If you want to go back to 2011, game five, Cardinals-Phillies division series, Roy Halladay versus Chris Carpenter, and it was an epic. But what did the Cardinals do as the road team right out of the shoot in that game? They got a man on, and they got him in with a little blue pit,

and they won the game 1-0 because a balls-out pitcher let his nuts hang, pitched his dick off, and won the game. And that's what you need from Verlander. Bullpen's been fine. That's great. I'm not here for the bullpen. Verlander, you ain't coming back for another game. This is game five.

No matter what, there's going to be at least six. Odds are you're not going to be available to do anything in those other games anyway. Empty it. That's why I was kind of surprised they took out, that they made the pitching change they made with Javier throwing a no-hitter last night. I was surprised by that because it's an empty-the-tank situation, you would think. So just let him go. You're up 5-0.

I can understand why you would debate that. I know I'm kind of shifting gears a little bit, but I can understand where the debate exists in that one. Do you leave him in and let him have a chance to throw the no-hitter? But what if you leave him in, he gives up a double, and all of a sudden there's nobody out and a runner at second, and the Phillies believe they have a chance? You know, you felt like maybe he was done. Didn't look like he was done.

Looks like he was humming it. But still, Dusty made that decision. But there was an argument to be made of, hey, the guy's empty in the tank. It's his last time he's going to pitch all year. He's got a no-hitter in the freaking World Series. They can't touch him. Let's go. But they made the pitching change, and I can live with it. They won the game 5-0. They threw a no-hitter as a team. The series is tied 2-2.

Those are the things that matter. But I need Verlander to be a bulldog tonight. I need one of these scenarios where it's, fuck the bullpen. Give me the ball, let's go. And I don't want to see bottom of the first, two on, one out, runners on the corners, pressure, big bopper at the plate with a chance to do something, Bryce, whatever. I don't want to see that. I want to see Verlander do exactly what Javier did last night, which is take their fucking soul right from the jump. You do that, you can win the game.

We talked about the advantage in the pitching matchups going into the series. It's a great advantage, right? Well, this is where it comes into it. You've got a best two out of three series now. You've got two games at home. You win this one tonight and take two out of three in their place. You win one game at home, which you know you can do, and you're the world champs for the second time in six years.

And then you put to bed all the shit about the cheating shit. You say, all right, fine, we cheated in 2017. Guess what? We got another ring. Now what, bitch? That's what you gotta do. And Verlander's gotta be a fucking stud tonight. None of this pussyfooting around. None of this, ah, it was okay. At the end

of the day, I don't want us to sit here and go, yeah, it was fine. The start was fine. Five innings, three runs, threw a lot the day, I don't want us to sit here and go yeah, it was fine. The start was fine. Five innings, three runs, threw a lot of pitches. I don't want that shit. What I want to see tonight is I want Verlander. I'm going very stereotype here, very kind of over-the-top dopey. Pitch like this is the last fucking

baseball game you're ever going to pitch. And who knows? Maybe after you go out win the Cy Young and win another championship, maybe you do just say, Cy and I'm going to hang out and bang my hot wife all the time. Maybe that's what you do. But pitch this shit like it's the last time your ass is ever going to go to the mailman. Because I love you. I got your back.

I wanted you in Houston. I did everything I could on the radio to get you to Houston. I admire you. I think you're badass. You're one of the dying breed here. One of these old school pitchers that I used to watch when I was a kid and say, wow, that guy's a fucking boss. I admire that guy.

Get out there and pitch like it's all on the line. Like this is it. Like when Dusty takes the ball from you at the end of this game, you're never grabbing a baseball again. Pitch like a fucking man tonight, JV. We all fucking love you. We got your back, and we want to see you take game five tonight. 3-2 Astros. That's what we want tonight. Because the fucking Verlandi man can.