Houston Astros ace Justin Verlander has been dominating the New York Yankees long before he wore the Astros uniform.
Since making his big league debut in 2006 as a hot prospect with the Detroit Tigers, Verlander has been pitching against the Bombers, earning good results.
“Justin Verlander 101 mph vs. the Yankees in the 2006 postseason at age 23; 98 mph vs. the Yankees in the 2022 postseason at age 39,” Statcast’s David Adler tweeted, showing a video of each.
Justin Verlander
101 mph vs. the Yankees in the 2006 postseason at age 23
98 mph vs. the Yankees in the 2022 postseason at age 39 pic.twitter.com/Nnuc12sSnn
— David Adler (@_dadler) October 20, 2022
Early-career Verlander was fantastic.
He quickly became the ace of those Tigers and was behind many postseason runs, including World Series losses in 2006 and 2012.
On those late-2000s, early-2010s Tigers, Verlander was the leader of the pitching staff and Miguel Cabrera was the top producer at the plate.
Verlander Has Had Success Against The Yankees His Whole Career
He reached 100 and 101 mph with relative ease, which may seem normal these days but was a rare occurrence in the early stages of his career, in the 2000s.
He has been with the Astros since 2017, and nothing has changed other than a couple of ticks down on his fastball.
He keeps dominating the league, even at 39 years old: he just had a 1.75 ERA and a 0.83 WHIP in 175 regular season innings in Houston.
And he is coming off a dominant game on Wednesday night against the Yanks, tossing six one-run innings with 11 strikeouts.
Against the Yankees, he has a career 3.44 ERA in 146.1 frames: he gives his team a chance to win almost every time.
Verlander is a future Hall of Famer as a World Series, MVP, and multiple Cy Young award winner.
Time changes and affects a lot of things, but Verlander dominating the Yankees certainly isn’t one of them.
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