Framber on four days of rest is 1-5 with a 6.57 era in 7 starts. He’s 11-5 with a 2.20 era with 5 days rest this year in 19 starts.
Verlander on four days rest is 8-1 with a 2.24 era (9 starts). On five days rest he’s 4-5 with a 3.89 era (15 starts).
Not sure if this factored into the decision making but Frambers numbers on short rest have not been good this year. Honestly I don’t expect either guy to pitch on short rest in this series. France for game 3 and Javi for game 4 (short leash) should be the play. Leaves JV for a potential do or die game 5 which is definitely how I’d prefer to go down.
I’ll watch when Frontline does an investigation of the investigation.
They could look into:
Lifelong yankees fan and New York native, rob manfred, who chose to investigate; not the teams most suspected and accused of cheating, but rather the teams that had been keeping his team from reaching the World Series.
nyc native ken rosenthal, who wrote the article that exposed the Astros cheating. He also works for fox, the network that has been carrying the World Series since 2000.
I’ve always thought that it would be interesting if congress got involved like they did with the Mitchell report and did one on all of the teams in baseball.
Here’s where we are in agreement 100%. One of the Sportsmap guys said Verlander would go first on sheer Big Stage credit alone.
My concern is that Verlander has bad luck in the playoffs. Framber is still young enough where he doesn’t have any stigma about stuff like that. I thought it would be Framber because of what you said. Framber would not only go on short notice, he might even be better on short notice. He tends to press and get anxious when he’s fresh. Overthrow even. If he was coming in and knew he wouldn’t see fifth gear he might relax and just throw diamonds for four or five innings.
I just worry about JV in the playoffs. Framber has been weird this year. But I think Framber would consider it a challenge to throw on short notice. I worry that Verlander is going to go into his patented 92-94 mph cruise control when he gets a little fatigued. Its not a good zone for him.
Not implying that JV wouldn’t consider it a challenge. I just think he’d try to manage it. Where Framber would throw it till his arm gave out.
JV’s “playoff woes” are non-existent outside the WS. He’s 8-1 in the ALDS with an era right at 3 over his career. Stop buying into enemy propaganda. JV will be fine.
With any luck the bats will come out hot and render this whole discussion moot. But if not I’m good with JV on the mound. He basically won two playoff games last week so Id say he’s in good form.
Of course I don’t want him to do well in the series against the 'Stros, but if I was in the park, I’d clap for him. He won me over after the scandal when he defended Altuve and how he responded when Cody (Mr. 17 strikeouts in the '17 World Series) Bellinger was bellyaching about how the Astros “stole” the World Series from the Astros. I’ll always be a fan of CC.