Houston’s Justin Verlander Struggles in the World Series. Again. Why Doesn’t The Astros Believe in His Performance? | Sportsnet
A few weeks ago, I wrote about the two best hitters in baseball. As I mentioned, the first hitter is Justin Verlander.
The other is Buster Posey.
I mentioned one reason why the Astros are so obsessed with batting Verlander at all cost. That’s because they want to have their best hitter in the postseason. But the way they’re trying to keep Verlander healthy for the postseason, there’s no way they can afford to let Posey get hurt.
And then there’s Jose Altuve.
When Altuve’s at the plate batting, things are different. The Astros hit the ball so that it either flies out or is a groundball. When Altuve hits a ball that is out of the park, it is almost always with a groundball.
What’s the problem?
Well, this time, it’s with a swinging-strikeout on a 2-2 curveball.
How could this happen?
This is what happened.
We’re seeing the Astros in the World Series now, a team that is trying to win by hitting balls hard and the other team trying to destroy them by hitting balls soft.
And here’s the funny thing about this series. The Houston Astros are batting Verlander like Posey is batting Cabrera. If you want to keep Verlander healthy for the postseason, you can’t just keep him at.245, or even at.235, because that has too many chances for Verlander to give up a home run in the playoffs.
Instead, you’ve got to hit him well enough that it’s at least a groundball.
Maybe not this time.
It’s been so long since these two teams were
