The World Series game 1 begins tonight with Justin Verlander starting for Detroit and the revived Barry Zito announced by Bochy to make the start for San Francisco.
How the mighty have fallen. Remember how not so long ago former ace Tim Lincecum would have been the no brainer choice to start an important game like this for the Giants against a guy like Verlander?
Now they will rely on Zito, the huge contract disappointment who was all but written off up until this season when he turned things around by replacing the production in the rotation they used to depend on from the struggling two time Cy Young award winner Lincecum.
It should be a very interesting series. Zito's curveball will be put to the test early against those powerful Detroit bats.
Zito has had the good command so far. It's still very early but this is reminding me of the dominant pitcher he once was with the Oakland A's 10 years ago.
The true test is going to be once the Tigers bat around a few times in the order and get a good look.
Verlander didn't have it at all tonight. You could see it in the first inning. Leyland has since pulled him. Al Alburquerque is brought on from the pen in relief.
The Tigers offense so far looks flat after the layoff. Hopefully it's not 2006 all over again for them.
You can throw all the pre-game predictions out the window on this one.
Gregor Blanco has made two great catches in left field for San Francisco in this game that have robbed Detroit and bailed the Giants out of further damage.
The Giants take game 1 of the 2012 World Series 8-3.
Barry Zito is the winning pitcher for San Francisco and Justin Verlander takes the loss for Detroit.
Tonight was one of those RARE bad starts by Verlander. And they are rare. Leyland usually has to pry the ball out of Verlander's hand especially in big games like this. He'll be back. Don't bet on two bad outings in a row from Verlander.
Zito is on the magical mystery tour this year. Most baseball experts thought he was through. He had another big game performance tonight in the post season for the Giants. His career has basically been at the bottom of the hill since his Cy Young Award days in Oakland. He's turning it around late in his career at 34 after losing much of his prime to sheer mediocrity and worse.
I can recall that on this very thread years ago we discussed Zito possibly coming to the Mets once he entered free agency. The Mets went after him agressively and offered him a boatload of money back in their spending days (I believe it was actually even more money than the Giants offered at the time) and he declined the Mets offer to stay out in the Bay area which is his home. (Even with his recent success thank goodness he did!)
San Francisco pitching coach Dave Righetti is being credited with helping Zito fix his mechanics. Righetti has been the Giants pitching coach on the scene for a very long time now and it's a bit strange how it took all these years to finally get Zito straightened out.
