Freddie Freeman fanboying over Justin Verlander might've had Tigers fans briefly rooting for LA

Justin Verlander hasn't had much time to relax since throwing his last major league pitch. Shortly after the regular season, he made an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, and on Tuesday night, he popped up at the FOX Sports desk alongside Alex Rodriguez, David Ortiz, and Derek Jeter for Game 3 of the Dodgers-Braves NLDS.

He wasn't too shabby, either, providing some pretty informative analysis before and after the game and even taking a friendly shot at the other baseball legends around him.

They checked in with Freddie Freeman, who hit a homer in the Dodgers' 3-1 win, after the game. Verlander introduced himself to Freeman over his headset and Freeman, delighted, paused his line of questioning to greet him.

"Hold on, J. Congratulations, that was so awesome to watch in that final start. Congratulations on a Hall of Fame career. Miss you, and congrats."

Maybe we're just imagining things, but did Verlander get a little a little emotional there for a second? The formerly ice Tigers ace has gone soft in his older age.

He stayed on with the crew for the Brewers-Padres series, which San Diego took to keep their playoff hopes alive for at least one more day. Manny Machado said what every Tigers fan was thinking when Verlander's turn came around, "Hey, didn't you just retire, man? You gotta enjoy it a little bit, come on."

Justin Verlander made his first foray into broadcasting with FOX NLDS coverage

Freeman is widely known as one of the friendliest guys in baseball and has a reputation for being easily moved to tears. No doubt he was right there with us, sobbing over Verlander's exit from his last start. Six years separate Freeman and Verlander in age, but they're still from the same era of the game. They've been named to five All-Star teams together (even if they were always competing against each other) and are both Hall of Fame-bound.

There's nothing soft about this launch of a broadcasting career post-playing, joining the likes of fellow future Hall of Famers Joey Votto and Clayton Kershaw. (Tigers fans will be hoping that his analysis goes over more like Kershaw's and less like Votto's).

We thought JV would enjoy his retirement a little more first before launching straight in work, like Machado urged him to do, but Tigers fans won't complain about seeing him stay around the game.

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