Waiting For a Second Chance: Justin Verlander's Path to the 2017 World Series

Justin Verlander has pushed the Astros to the brink of the World Series.

Six days after twirling a brilliant complete game effort that resulted in a 2-1 walk-off victory, longtime major league hurler Justin Verlander took the mound on October 20th and shut down the visiting New York Yankees to force a decisive Game 7. Verlander sprinkled five hits over his seven scoreless innings of work, racking up another eight strikeouts in the process and further endearing himself to the Houston Astros fan base. The start continued Verlander's run of utter dominance in an Astro's uniform, particularly during the 2017 postseason. In four games (three starts), Verlander has an unblemished 4-0 record. With just seventeen hits and six walks allowed over his 24.2 innings of work, Verlander's WHIP (walks & hits per innings pitched) stands at 0.93, an excellent indicator of just how dominant he has been. Essentially, he is giving up less than a single baserunner per inning pitched. While it is still strange to see the tall right hander in a uniform other than that of the Detroit Tigers, Justin Verlander is on the verge of getting his second shot at a World Series title, an opportunity that has eluded him since his rookie season in 2006. Indeed, it has most certainly been a long road to this moment for the hurler from central Virginia.

Born and raised in the quaint town of Manakin-Sabot, it was clear that big things were in store for Justin Verlander. The big righty found his big fastball at an early age and by his junior year in high school, Verlander was pumping in fastballs at speeds in excess of ninety miles per hour. However, adversity awaited the young pitcher during his senior year as he saw a precipitous drop in velocity which he attributed to illness. While the loss of a few miles per hour to his fastball did little to lessen his effectiveness (Verlander struck out an absurd 144 batters in seventy-two innings of work during his senior season), college coaches found their interest waning in the righty, perhaps attributing the diminished fastball velocity to injury. Regardless of whether it was injury or illness, Verlander found that his college option were more limited than one would imagine. Following his senior year in high school, Justin enrolled in nearby Old Dominion University, a mere two hours from where he grew up in Goochland County, Virginia.

Justin Verlander struck out an impressive 427 batters in his college career.

Verlander undoubtedly made opposing college coaches rue their decision to not more ardently pursue him in the recruitment process as he burst onto the scene with a truly fantastic freshman year. Across one hundred and thirteen innings, Verlander notched 137 punch outs (falling one short of the all-time ODU single season record). The righty was able to etch his name in the single game record books, however, with a seventeen strikeout performance vs. James Madison University. In his second year in college, Verlander staked his claim to the strikeout record with one hundred and thirty-nine Ks. The following summer, Verlander pitched for Team USA in the 2003 Pan American Games and it was here that he introduced himself as a legitimate collegiate prospect. The fire-balling hurler notched a sparkling 1.29 ERA and a 5-1 record against some of the best amateur international talent in the world and helped Team USA to a silver medal finish.

Heading into his third and final year in college, Verlander did not disappoint for the Old Dominion Monarchs. Across one hundred and six innings, Verlander shattered his season strikeout record by registering 151 Ks as well as notching four victories over nationally ranked opponents. Armed with a fastball that nearly sat in the triple digits, Verlander was selected second overall by the Detroit Tigers in the infamous 2004 MLB draft that saw shortstop-turned prison inmate-turned reliever Matt Bush selected first overall. After a lengthy negotiation dispute that threatened to derail Verlander's professional career, the righty was signed to a contract with a $3.1 million signing bonus.

Verlander spent no time establishing himself as one of the top pitching prospects in the minor leagues, posting a 9-2 record for Class-A Lakeland in thirteen starts. The former Monarch's performance earned him a promotion to AA-Erie where he further stepped up his game by running off nearly twenty-five scoreless innings, an accomplishment that led to his first promotion to the major league club. On July 4th, just a little more than a year after his final collegiate start, Justin Verlander made in major league debut versus the Cleveland Indians on the tail-end of a day-night double header. Over five plus innings, Verlander allowed four runs on seven hits. Perhaps it wasn't the flashiest of starts to a career (it certainly wasn't Steven Strasburg bursting onto the scene in 2010), but Verlander quickly proved that the moment wasn't too big for him and that he was capable of performing at the sport's highest level.

Justin Verlander broke onto the major league scene in 2005 and has hardly looked back.

In 2006, Justin Verlander broke spring training with the big league club as the #5 starter on a Tiger's team that shocked the MLB world by going from 71-91 cellar dweller to AL pennant champions. By and large, Verlander was at the center of the Tiger's revival. On May 23rd, the righty notched the first of his twenty three complete games by shutting out the Kansas City Royals. While he may've been listed as the team's #5 starter, Verlander performed like a staff ace. By the end of June, Verlander had already accumulated ten victories which made him the first rookie in major league history to notch double digit victories by that point in the season. Verlander added seven more wins over the season's final three months to finish the year at 17-9. With a 95-67 regular season record, the Tigers made the playoffs as a Wild Card contender. Their opponent in the divisional series? The New York Yankees.

Some may call it irony and some may call it fate for Verlander to find himself on the brink of a second World Series appearance with the New York Yankees in his way. In his first go-around versus the Bronx Bombers, Verlander spun 5.1 innings of mostly solid pitching outside of a three-run homerun to Johnny Damon in a Game 2 that saw the Tigers eventually emerge victorious via a score of 4-3. Eleven years and nine days later, Verlander spun that complete game masterpiece. For all of his personal accolades, however, Verlander has yet to achieve the greatest honor of all: a World Series title. The 2006 Detroit Tigers eventually fell in the World Series to the St. Louis Cardinals after besting the Yankees in the ALDS and the Oakland A's in the ALCS. Despite a Cy Young Award, an MVP award, and multiple All-Star appearances, Verlander has not yet been able to celebrate winning baseball's final game of the season. Having pitched in Game 6, it looks like Verlander will have to at least wait until the end of the night to see whether he will have that opportunity to return to the Fall Classic. Then again, maybe not as Astro's manager AJ Hinch joked, "You're going to see a game played [tonight] with everybody available. Probably not Verlander, but he's superhuman, so we'll see how he shows up."