Justin Verlander inflicts more damage to Yankees with six shutout innings
Mets starting pitcher Justin Verlander delivers against the Yankees during the first inning of an MLB game at Yankee Stadium on Tuesday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
Jose Altuve won’t be replaced any time soon as public enemy No. 1 among Yankees fans from the last decade.
But no one has inflicted more damage on their favorite team in that time than Justin Verlander.
It continued Tuesday night.
Verlander, who has especially excelled over the years in torturing the Yankees in the month of October, shut down them down with the stakes significantly lower Tuesday.
But shut them down he did, allowing just two hits over six scoreless innings in the Yankees' 9-3 loss at the Stadium. The 40-year-old righthander, who walked four and struck out six, improved to 5-5 with a 3.24 ERA this season.
“He had his way with us,” Aaron Boone said. “I thought his slider was really good [and] everything kind of worked off of that. He was able to slow us down with the breaking ball, which allowed his fastball to really play [up]. [He] really beat us up tonight.”
He has done that throughout much of his career, which started in 2006 with the Tigers (he debuted in 2005 and pitched in two games at the age of 22).
Verlander improved to 10-7 with a 3.24 ERA in 25 career regular season starts against the Yankees, including 5-0 with a 1.69 ERA in his last eight outings against them.
The numbers are even better in October (5-1, 2.62 ERA).
Though Boone mentioned Verlander’s slider being particularly effective Tuesday night, Harrison Bader said that wasn’t a pitch he saw in his three at-bats against the future Hall of Famer.
“But watching other people’s at-bats, it was sharp,” Bader said. “He had a really short arm action, really quick to the plate, especially with runners on. So when you kind of mess up a hitter’s timing, the stuff plays up.”
It took Verlander coming out of the game – after 98 pitches – and the subsequent rolling out of the Mets unsightly bullpen for the Yankees, who went 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position and stranded 11 overall, to get on the board.
Lefty Brooks Raley hit pinch hitter Isiah Kiner-Falefa to start the seventh and Anthony Volpe, who reached on an error in the fifth and stole his team-best 18th base but was stranded, laced a double off the wall in right to make it 7-1. Raley walked Kyle Higashioka and Jake Bauers popped out. In came righty Dominic Leone, who walked Gleyber Torres to load the bases. Giancarlo Stanton hit a liner to the opposite field but directly at rightfielder DJ Stewart. The sacrifice fly made it 7-2. Anthony Rizzo struck out to end the threat.
The Yankees loaded the bases with one out in the eighth against Grant Hartwig and scored one run, on a groundout to second by pinch hitter Ben Rortvedt. That made it 7-3, the big deficit almost entirely due to Verlander’s standout performance (and another subpar one from Domingo German, who allowed six runs and seven hits over six innings).
“Obviously, he’s had a tremendous career,” Bader said of Verlander. “I have a lot of respect for what he does. He just hit his spots really well tonight with the fastball and controlled the zone with different speeds and different pitches. It’s a good recipe for success.”
It's one Verlander has cooked up with regularity over the years against the Yankees.
Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.
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