Whicker: World Series is up for grabs after Game 6 escapes Justin Verlander’s grip

LOS ANGELES — Justin Verlander stomped his way into the sixth inning, looking for more grapes.

He had ended the last three innings with strikeouts. He had given the Dodgers one hit and no walks, except for a lot of head-down walks back to the dugout.

He had struck out Cody Bellinger twice, dropped an obscene curveball to eliminate Joc Pederson.

“I didn’t really feel like I was really going at it,” Verlander said. “But I’d look up at the scoreboard and it would say 98 (mph).”

Verlander had Houston’s first World Series championship on his racket in Game 6 on Wednesday night. He was only leading 1-0, thanks to some tricky bobbing-and-weaving by Rich Hill and Brandon Morrow and Tony Watson.

But he was good enough to make the crowd sit there, absorbing cool mist in the same place where it sweated rivers a week ago. Wishful thinking masqueraded as hope. There was nothing to indicate the Astros wouldn’t fly home soaked and victorious.

But Game 6s never just sit there obediently. They have traditionally been the best games of the best World Series, just as this game was, just as this Series is becoming.

When the sixth was over, Verlander wore a what-happened expression and a 2-1 deficit.

Joc Pederson would add a home run off Joe Musgrove, a renewed Kenley Jansen would roll through the eighth and ninth innings with 19 pitches, no baserunners and 18 strikes, and the Dodgers would win 3-1 and set up the first World Series Game 7 in Dodger Stadium history.

This game becomes the most involving sporting event in this city since the Lakers beat the Celtics in Game 7 of the 2010 NBA Finals. Those two teams were approximately as exhausted as these are. To make it happen, the Dodgers’ pitching staff had to gather itself after five games that had produced a 5.59 ERA.

It did and now Verlander hopes he doesn’t develop a kinship with others who had chances to nail down Games 6s and wound up losing it all.

Like the Giants’ Russ Oritz, who in 2002 had a 5-0 lead in Anaheim, gave up two singles, and was taken out by Dusty Baker, who handed him the baseball as a keepsake. The Angels beat up three relievers, won 6-5, then won the next night.

Like the Rangers’ Darren Oliver, who in 2011 had a 2-and-2 count on Lance Berkman of the Cardinals in the bottom of the 10th with a 9-8 lead. Berkman doubled, and David Freese homered in the 11th, and the Cardinals won Game 7, too.

Like the Cardinals’ John Tudor, who in 1987 had a 5-2 lead at Minnesota going into the fifth. Then Kirby Puckett singled, Gary Gaetti doubled and Don Baylor homered, and Tudor left, and the Twins turned that tie into an 11-5 rout and a clinching win the next night.

Houston has a right to expect a better fate.

Game 7 starter Lance McCullers Jr. is on normal rest. The Dodgers’ Yu Darvish is coming off an uncompetitive Game 3. And surely the Astros’ bullpen is fresher, since Brad Peacock had two days off. Whether the Astros dare use exiled closer Ken Giles is something we’ll discover, but Jansen, Morrow and Kenta Maeda all worked again, and Morrow became the fifth pitcher ever to work the first six games of a World Series.

There will be opportunities to deliver Verlander from regret. He stood there at his locker for a long time Tuesday, philosophical and reflective. The Dodgers are delighted they won’t see him again (probably).

“I threw the ball good even in that inning,” he said. “They got a couple of runs and it (stinks), but what can you do? They’re a hard team to beat. So are we.

“These teams won 100 games. There isn’t anything they don’t do well. I kind of think everybody knew this was going to seven games.”

It began when Verlander got to 2-and-0 on Austin Barnes.

“That shouldn’t have happened,” he said, “and he got a base hit that found a hole.”

Then Verlander hit Chase Utley, a batter he should overmatch, in the foot.

“I was trying to bury a slider there,” he said. “I’ve left enough sliders over the plate lately to know what happens. I just yanked it.”

Chris Taylor dumped a 97 mph fastball into no man’s land, near the line, and Barnes scored.

“I went back and looked at it,” Verlander said. “I thought I made a good pitch. He reached out and hit it on the label and it wound up in right field. There wasn’t much I could do there.”

Then Corey Seager launched a run-scoring fly ball (in deference to Vin Scully, who never called them sacrifice flies because the batter isn’t giving himself up intentionally).

“That was the hardest-hit ball in the inning,” Verlander said. “Slider over the middle of the plate. Not a very good one.”

What about Wednesday?

“I hope we blow them out,” Verlander said, prompting laughter. “But I don’t think that’s going to happen. This is going to be a battle. Probably the two best games I’ve ever played in have been in this World Series. But we just played a Game 7 (an American League Championship Series win over the Yankees) so we know what it’s like.

“Naturally your adrenaline is so high that to calm yourself down is nearly impossible. But you use it. You just pitch and do the things you’ve done your whole life. At no point is there a letup or a deep breath. The only time that happens is when the inning is over and you reset, back in the dugout, and then you go back out.”

He smiled.

“Dallas Keuchel and I were talking after the game,” Verlander said. “He said that in these games, when there’s a man on first base and two out, it feels like they’ve got a man on third base and two out. That’s just the feel you have in these games.”

Six games, two won by Houston in extra innings, all but one decided by two or fewer runs. When the Dodgers hold Houston to fewer than five runs, they’re 3-0. When the Astros get into extra innings, they’re 2-0.

We will soon discover if any of that history matters. All we know is that Houston had a chance to win it in six with Justin Verlander. Sometimes that chance, if wasted, becomes your last.

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