Verlander ready to keep going as long as he can

BOSTON — Here in New England, it seemed an apt comparison: Could Justin Verlander be the Tom Brady of baseball?

“Yeah, I think the goal is to be healthy and to be strong as long as I can,” Verlander, who will start American League Championship Series Game 1 for the Astros on Saturday night at Fenway Park, said Friday in a news conference. “I think as long as I pay attention to my body and I take care of things that typically would creep in and start to cause issues as you get older, I think you can address those early on. And I think treating that stuff before it becomes an issue is what makes it not become an issue, as easy as that sounds.

“But there’s no set number for me. I think I just want to pitch as long as I can. I’ve had a great learning experience the last five years or so. And I think that’s going to be what pre- pares me for the second half of my career. I said second half, by the way.”

Asked whether we were in the third quarter or the fourth quarter of his career, Kate Upton’s husband smiled and replied, “Early third.”

In a sport in which 30 feels like the new 75, the 35-yearold Verlander is defying convention. He put up a superb first full season with the Astros, tallying a 2.52 ERA in 214 innings pitched, striking out a league-leading 290 and walking only 37. He’s likely to be among the three finalists for the AL Cy Young Award. He now leads all active pitchers in wins above replacement, as per BaseballReference.com, as he has 63.8, just ahead of the Yankees’ CC Sabathia (62.2), the Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw (62.1) and the Diamondbacks’ Zack Greinke (61.5).

When you factor in his postseason success (a 3.08 ERA in 23 appearances, 22 of them starts), Verlander could retire be- fore his Saturday assignment and cruise into the Hall of Fame.

“I mean, you start looking at the numbers and the wins and the strikeouts. Now he’s become a postseason poster child,” said Red Sox manager Alex Cora, who worked as the Astros’ bench coach last year when Verlander joined the team from Detroit. “It wasn’t that way earlier in his career. But now he’s the guy.”

Verlander’s contract runs out after next year, and at this juncture, he looks far more likely to make another chunk of money — and challenge the current game’s limits — than to retire.

“I’ve always just been, kind of like, ‘ Finding Nemo’ [character] Dory: Just keep swimming,” Verlander said. “That’s me: Just keep pitching, just head down, prepare myself and just keep pitching. And at the end of my career, hopefully when I look up and all is said and done, that’s cemented my legacy.”