Houston Steals Game 1 Thanks To Yordan Alvarez, But Everyone Is Wondering What The Hell Happened With Justin Verlander?

Obviously the story of the game was the Mariners bullpen melting down and Yordan Alvarez sending the Houston crowd back home with a mash job that Carl wrote about here. 

However, if that 9th inning never happens, the story would be about how Justin Verlander picked a bad time to have his worst start of the 2022 season. No two ways about it, he was awful today. The soon to be Cy Young winner gave up six earned runs on 10 hits in four innings with just three Ks. That isn't the Justin Verlander we got used to seeing this year.

The question everyone is asking is "what the hell happened to Justin Verlander?". He is made for playoff baseball, he was born for this....so why did he lay a completely disgusting egg today? He just didn't have it, didn't have his swing and miss stuff, wasn't fooling anyone, and quite frankly got smacked around quite a bit. He just looked off. Was it the long layoff? Was it a lingering injury? Was he just too jacked for his start? Whatever it was it just wasn't his normal stuff. The six runs is tied for the most runs he's ever given up in a playoff game, Seattle had his number today. 

But that brings me to a great talking point that Hubbs and Jake Arrieta talked about on Starting 9 today. 

It starts right at the 54 minute mark, Hubbs and Jake talk about sometimes aces just lay eggs in the playoffs. Jake basically said word for word what Verlander looked like today, everything was up in the zone, couldn't get his command down. It was magical how he described it. 

Just a quick word on the game. It is TERRIFYING that your ace can be this bad, you can trail the entire game, the opposing team can bring in their monster free agent pitcher (weird move by Seattle if you ask me)…and you still can't get to these Astros. Chances are Verlander won't have a bad game like this again, chances are Altuve won't go 0 for again. The Mariners punched them right in the face and Houston just wouldn't die, even when it looked dead and gone. This team is so damn good, even when their ace shits the bed. 

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And just for fun, lets see the bomb again.