After a dominant performance by Clayton Kershaw in the first game of the World Series against the Astros (seven innings, 11 Ks) to give the Dodgers a 1-0 lead, Houston will try to bounce back in game 2.
After Dallas Keuchel allowed two homers and three earned runs in 6.2 innings, the Astros will send their other Cy Young award-winning pitcher, Justin Verlander, to the mound against Rich Hill and a very confident Dodgers team that will try to get their second victory before moving the World Series to Texas for three straight games.
Verlander should be ready to face the Dodgers in game 2, and although he has a wide range of skills that he can use in this game, Dodgers batters should expect him to widely use his nasty sliders and curveballs. If batters let Verlander get late in the count they won’t be able to avoid those nasty pitches and will have to be looking to hit those or simply resign to going down in the box score as one of his many strikeout victims.
To try to counter Verlander the Dodgers’ batters should try to avoid chasing his breaking balls and get a hold of Verlander’s fastballs early to limit his control of the strike zone and force him to throw some good pitches to hit.
On the other hand, after facing Kershaw the Astros will have to deal with Rich Hill, who lives and dies with his curveballs. The curveball is Hill’s bread and butter pitch, which he uses at any moment in the count regardless of whether he’s early, late, ahead or behind.
Even more remarkable is that although opposing batters know that he’s going to throw it regardless of the situation, he still makes it really hard to hit against it.
Whether the Astros can adjust to it or not it will be interesting to see as the Astros fate in this World Series could very well depend on it.
It would be a very different outlook if the Astros get the win tonight. They can go back to Texas to play three straight with the series tied 1-1 and having faced the Dodgers most dangerous pitchers, or head home down 2-0 and with the pressure of having to win all three home games just to survive and head back to Los Angeles.
Regardless, expect another low scoring closely contested matchup where Verlander will have to keep shining as he has since being signed by the Astros late in the season.
Since joining the team from the Detroit Tigers in late August knowing that he was brought to the Astros to pitch in high-profile games, Verlander has started eight games and won them all. He pitched once in relief in the A.L.D.S and he won that game as well. He has a 1.23 ERA, has allowed a .171 average.
The problem is that Verlander is 0-3 in his three previous World Series starts, two coming in 2006 and one in 2012.
