HOUSTON — He is almost assuredly headed to the Baseball Hall of Fame five years after he retires. After a terrific 2022 season, he is favored to win his third American League Cy Young Award. He is unquestionably one of the greatest pitchers of his generation.
And yet, Justin Verlander cannot win a World Series game.
That the Houston Astros were tripped up for the first time this postseason was surprising enough. But watching Verlander give up a five-run lead over the fourth and fifth innings in Philadelphia’s thrilling, 6-5, 10-inning win in the opener of the 118th World Series on Friday was borderline inexplicable.
He is pitching in his fifth World Series. He was making his eighth career start.
And he now is 0-6 with a 6.07 E.R.A.
“I would sure love to win one,” he said wistfully and with a sigh, alone as he dressed at his locker in the quiet after fielding questions from the crowd in the media interview room.
The silence enveloped a stunned Astros clubhouse. Outfielder Kyle Tucker had slugged a solo home run in the second and added a three-run blast in the third, helping stake Houston to a 5-0 lead over Philadelphia starter Aaron Nola.
For the first hour or so of Game 1, it appeared as if the Astros might run the postseason table. They entered the World Series 7-0 this postseason, having eliminated Seattle in a division series before pummeling the Yankees in the American League Championship Series. They were just the fifth team in M.L.B. history to start a postseason with seven consecutive wins. Playing in the days before expanded playoffs, the 1976 Cincinnati Reds are the only team in history to gallop through the playoffs undefeated. They went 7-0, sweeping the Phillies in the N.L.C.S. and the Yankees in the World Series.
By the time Tucker deposited two balls in the seats, it looked as if the party might never end. And Verlander hadn’t even allowed a hit at that point, retiring the first 10 hitters he faced.
But then with two out and one on in the fourth, Bryce Harper and Nick Castellanos cracked base hits and Alex Bohm doubled them home. Suddenly, Verlander could not get his breaking ball down. Everything stayed up.
“That’s what changed,” Houston Manager Dusty Baker said. “Sometimes you change your game plan. You can’t keep throwing the same guys the same way all the time. That’s rare for him not to make those pitches.”
Verlander seemed somewhere between perplexed and bewildered.
“Disappointing, yeah, for sure,” he said. “I need to do better. No excuses.”
He said he needed to execute pitches better.
“I felt I had some guys in good situations and just wasn’t able to quite make the pitches that I wanted to,” he said.
Oddly, for as good as he’s been throughout his career, the Phillies are just the latest team to beat Verlander in the World Series. He owns the worst E.R.A. in World Series history among pitchers who have worked a minimum of 30 innings pitched. Carl Erskine (5.83), Don Sutton (5.26), Gary Nolan (4.96) and Al Leiter (4.59) rank just behind him.
Baker said he didn’t make a move to pull Verlander sooner because it was too early in the game to start chewing up relievers.
“It’s hard to take Justin out because he can struggle for awhile, but he usually gets it back together,” Baker said. “You don’t want to just go through your whole bullpen that early in the game.
“So like I said, there were two outs. Had there been no outs, it might have been a different story. But with two outs, you need one more out to get out of that inning.”
Unfortunately for Verlander and the Astros, the runs came first.