Diamondbacks Must Pop Justin Verlander's Bubble Early

Justin Verlander is a great pitcher and sure-fire first-ballot Hall of Famer. At 40 years old he is still pitching deep into games on a consistent basis. In fact, in his most recent outing against the Seattle Mariners, he pitched into the 9th inning, giving up just one run on three hits, a walk, and eight strikeouts. He'll be making his sixth start of September against the Diamondbacks today in a huge game with playoff implications for both teams. In five September starts, Verlander has completed 6, 7, 7, 6, and 8 innings.

He's not infallible of course and is not quite as dominant as he was last year when he went 18-4 with a 1.75 ERA on the way to his 3rd Cy Young award. That achievement at age 39 was made all the more remarkable by the fact that he was in his first season back from Tommy John surgery. This year he is a more mortal 12-8 with a 3.32 ERA, which is still good for a 127 ERA+, or roughly 27% better than the league average. He still throws a fastball (94.3 MPH), a slider a curveball, and a change-up against left-hand batters. His K/9 is down to 8.0 while he's walking 2.4 per nine. His 3.31 K/BB ratio is well above the 2.80 MLB average for a starting pitcher, but not nearly as dominant as last year's 6.38 BB/K rate.

An old baseball axiom with great pitchers is if you're going to get to them, you need to get to them early. While that may be less true in the modern era when pitchers are frequently not allowed to face the order a third time through, it is still often the case with the best workhorses. This has certainly been the case with Verlander this year. If you don't get to him in the first or third inning and allow him to settle in, you're probably not going to him at all. Check out the table below.

Opposing batters have a .933 OPS against him in the first inning, and he has a 6.23 ERA in the initial frame. The next highest numbers come in the 3rd inning and again in the fifth. Meanwhile, the numbers in the 2nd, 4th, and 6th are anemic. Simply put, the top of the Diamondbacks order needs to get to him early today as he's likely to still shut down and dominate the bottom half of the batting order.

How about first, second, and third time through the order? For context, the MLB average OPS against starting pitchers goes from .726 the first time through the order to .748 and then .782 the second and third time through, respectively.

As you can see in the table above, Verlander is prone to give up some slug the first time through the order, but after that, the second and third time through, it is lights out as the slug disappears and the SO/W ratio jumps. This is truly remarkable at age 40. If the Diamondbacks are to have a chance to beat the future Hall of Famer, it's going to come from Corbin Carroll, Ketel Marte, Tommy Pham, and Christian Walker. Somehow those four need to figure out how to break through or the D-backs playoff chances could come down to game 162.