Justin Verlander gives up two home runs in World Series Game 1 – MLB Update
Detroit Tigers’ ace Justin Verlander lost the ultimate battle at AT&T Park in San Francisco, California as the San Francisco Giants thumped the Detroit Tigers 8-3 in the opening game of the best of seven games World Series.
Manager Jim Leyland and the fans will be extremely disappointed with the outcome of the clash. They had great expectations from the reigning MVP and Cy Young Award winner but the night belonged to the Giants who displayed some top quality hitting skills
to secure a comfortable victory in Game 1.
Giants’ third baseman Pablo Sandoval had a memorable outing as he struck two home-runs against Verlander to give his side an impassable 4-0 lead in the third inning.
Verlander was replaced by Al Alburquerque who was also unable to control the flow of runs. Sandoval hit his third home-run to deny the Tigers any chance of coming back into the contest.
Jose Valverde continued to struggle on the mound, allowing four hits and two runs in just 0.1 innings. He has now blown consecutive saves in the post-season. It will be interesting to see if Leyland gives him one more opportunity to put things back on track.
"We played our last game only two days ago," Sandoval said. "We're still hot. We just came here and played our game."
"I just didn't execute tonight," Verlander said. "It was kind of a battle from the get-go. They took advantage of that and swung the bat pretty well, especially Pablo and (Marco) Scutaro. A couple of good bounces their way, bad for us."
"I'm one that's been around long enough to know that a lot of things happen in this game. This was a big-hyped game with Justin, probably a lot of pressure on him," Leyland said.
For the Giants, starter Barry Zito was simply outstanding. Against a powerful Tigers’ batting line-up, he gave up just one run to lay the foundation of the Giants victory.
However, the star of the show was Sandoval who continued his excellent hitting form to devastate the Tigers. Jhonny Peralta hit the only home-run for the Tigers in the bottom of the ninth inning.
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