World Series game 1.

There was Justin Verlander, the reigning AL MVP and Cy Young award winner, staring down Pablo Sandoval, who was at bat for the San Francisco Giants. A high and inside 95 MPH fastball and, crack, gone for a homer to right field. Fast forward a couple innings. Same match-up. A low and outside 95 MPH heater. Crack, gone to left field for a two run shot. Many Detroit Tiger fans probably had no idea who this Sandoval dude was. They do now, and he can hit some.

Evidently, the rest of the Giants didn't get the memo either about how Verlander is an intimidating pitcher. They worked him over like a boxer does a heavy bag. The "Fastball Flakes" man, known for always going at least 7 or 8 innings, if not completing the game, didn't make it into the 5th inning. Though he departed after only the 4th, with the Tigers down 5-0, the Giants had pretty much worn him out. Every hitter seemed to take him deep into the pitch count. Verlander's typical variety of "strike-out" pitches were continually fouled off. When the Giants' batters finally got a good one to hit -- they did. Hard.

Pitch counts for starters is a big deal these days with most major league clubs. Usually around 125 or so is where they draw the line. Verlander recently scoffed at that notion, saying he had never hit "the wall", and estimated he might be good for 175 or so. Well, at the rate he was going, he might have found out -- by about the 7th inning. Rather than being intimidated, the Giants were feasting on him.

Sure, JV will be back, likely in Game 4, and he might very well turn in a dominating performance. Thing is, the "fear factor", if there ever was one, is long gone. The Giants now know he can be had. On some level -- that counts.

Idle thought: Harkon back to this year's All-Star game when Verlander had a serious dose of "shock and awe" visited upon him by the NL batters. Apparently, a lot of those guys didn't get the memo either.

On a related note, there's something yours truly can't figure. Bruce Bochy, the manager of the SF Giants, obviously knows what he's doing. He must, because not counting guys named Valentine, Trammel, Gibson, and maybe Guillen, a major league team isn't going to hire a manager that has no clue how to run a clubhouse. Regardless, whatever Bochy is doing seems to be working. He and his team are in the World Series, after all. No small feat.

Yet sometimes one is left to wonder what voices this latest version of Bruce Almighty may be hearing in his head. During the 7th and deciding game in the National League championship against the St. Louis Cardinals, Bochy came out of the dugout to make a pitching change. That's not so unusual, until one considers this was done in the 9th inning, with his team leading 9-0, in a POURING DOWN RAIN. The series is over. Umps, a sell-out crowd of fans, and even his own players on the field are getting drenched, and everybody just wants to go home, but NO, Bochy insists on a pitching change, holding up the inevitable for another 20 minutes or so. What was he thinking?

Even in this first game of the World Series, with his team ahead by 7 runs in the 9th inning, Bochy found a way to use 3 pitchers. By the time they arrive from the bullpen, take their warm-up tosses, la-dee-dah, that adds another 20-25 minutes to a game that was already basically over. I'm glad one of the Tigers popped a 2-run homer. Served him right for prolonging the agony -- of the viewing audience.

I have no idea what is going through Bochy's mind when he does such things, but it should be a crime.

Win or lose, when this World Series is over, Bochy should be held accountable for these travesties he's visited upon us fans. But what would be an appropriate punishment? Hmmm.

Well OK. He's in San Fran, and a mile or so off the coast of Fisherman's Wharf still sits Alcatraz. Though it was closed down as a prison during the Kennedy administration, it remains a very interesting tourist attraction to this day. Yours truly has been there a couple times. No, not as an inmate. I'm old, and have done some bad things in my life, but I'm not THAT old, and those things weren't all THAT bad.

I'm thinking maybe they should re-open D block, where they used to keep the troublemakers back in the day. Put Bochy in the Birdman's old cell for a week or two, and let the tourism continue.

It seems eminently fair. The public will still get charged the price of admission, and if Bochy wants everyone to look at him, while justice is being served as well -- then why not?