How Pitchers Are Lasting Deeper Into Games This Postseason

In a midgame interview Wednesday, Baker suggested that Verlander, who made 28 regular-season starts this year after losing nearly two seasons to injuries, would steady himself, but he said afterward that he hadn’t been so sure.

“It didn’t look like he was going to get there because early, man, I’m looking on the board up there and he had like almost 60 pitches after two, I think,” Baker said. “I kept looking and looking, and I think I went on air in the third inning, and I just said, ‘Hey, if he could get a couple short innings, he could take us deep into the ballgame.’”

Verlander did just that, looking sharper for his final 25 pitches than he had at any other point in the game. He finished with 11 strikeouts, and Houston’s bullpen contributed three innings of one-run ball.

As it turns out, the demise the starting pitcher may have been highly exaggerated, despite a legitimate reason for the fear. In 2021, there were 74 starts by pitchers in the postseason; only 13 of them (17.6 percent) lasted through at least six innings. Only three of those came once the playoffs had reached the league championship series and only one came in the World Series.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/20/sports/baseball/justin-verlander-pitchers-innings.html