Justin Verlander Threw A Complete Game Shutout Last Night, Recorded His 2,500th Career Strikeout And Lowered His ERA To 1.05
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Justin Verlander is a goddamn robot. The craziest part about all of this is that last night was just his first complete game shutout with the Astros. It feels like he’s had at least ten of them by now. After blanking the Angels over nine innings, Verlander lowered his MLB-leading ERA to a ridiculous 1.05, his MLB-leading WHIP to 0.71, upping his major league-leading innings total to 68.2, while recording his 84th strikeout, which is fourth most in the big leagues.
In Verlander’s ten starts this season, he’s allowed two earned runs once and three earned runs once. The rest of his starts have been one earned run or less. He’s also one of three pitchers in baseball who are averaging at least seven innings per start. The leader of the pack is Corey Kluber (7.1), while Verlander and his teammate Gerrit Cole are the only other pitchers who are averaging an even seven innings per start.
Since joining the Astros last September, Verlander has made a total of 15 starts and he’s 10-2 with a 1.05 ERA, a 0.69 WHIP, and 127 strikeouts in 102.2 innings. All of those marks lead the majors over that span except for the strikeouts. Cole has two more than him. Keep in mind, this man is 35 years old and just keeps getting better. What’s most noticeable is that his velocity keeps getting better, which is probably what guys like Trevor Bauer are noticing when they complain about Astros pitchers’ spin rate.
Prior to 2017, Verlander’s fastball hadn’t averaged at least 95 MPH since 2012 (95.23). In 2013 (94.54), 2014 (93.30), 2015 (93.39), and 2016 (94.33), it was under an average of 95 MPH, but you could see the dip and then the rise back to 95 where it’s been in both 2017 (95.76) and through ten starts here in 2018 (95.35).
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Like I said, the man’s a freak. By the end of the year, we could be talking about Verlander (finally) taking home the second Cy Young award of his career. The reason why I say “finally” is because he was a runner-up in 2012 when you could make the case that he had a better season than David Price, and he was a runner-up in 2016 when he definitely had a better season than Rick Porcello.