Wouldn't the narrative be- Astros fall back down to earth whole red Sox and dodgers still great with having never cheated
JV didn’t have the dominant velo as in 2017. If 2017 JV velo is gone, we don’t have a true dominant No1. We have three very solid No2’s that can perform pretty well on any given night. My guess is that this team goes as far as the offense takes it.
Your standards for a No. 1 must be insanely high then. He was unquestionably a dominant No. 1 last year, and I saw no reason for concern on his performance last night.
I can’t recall how JV started 2019. I know his FB sat at 94-95 by year end and he had a harder time putting people way with FB up in the zone.
he was for the first 3/4th of the season. His stuff and accordingly results tailed off late in the season. He was so dominant early in the season those insane numbers, WHIP in particular, carried him to the Cy young award.
Minus possibly having his best game of his career in September... his fastball is still elite... but his slider is actually becoming the best pitch of all of them.
Verlander last September: 39 inning pitched 57 Ks (13+ Ks/9) 23 hits, 8 walks (around a .8 WHIP) I'll take that lack of dominance anytime.
yeah, maybe my memory sucks, or I’m just thinking of the post season. Or mentally benchmarking “dominance” against what Gerrit Cole is/was doing, which is a near impossible standard.
If JV doesnt win the Cy Young this year, he will officially have fallen off. Thats a factual statement.
The problem with the way they do the box score is they add up the LOB for each hitter. Assume Springer, Altuve and Bregman all walk. The next 3 guys all strike out. They left 3 on, but each batter that struck out left 3 on. Thus, the box score can be read as 9 men LOB.