Tigers’ Verlander healthy, optimistic
Justin Verlander wants to end up in the Hall of Fame. Two years ago, as the Detroit Tigers ace battled through a triceps injury in the early part of the season, that didn’t seem likely.
Now he has a chance again. A real good one if he keeps pitching as he did last season.
Think about that for a moment, about how good Verlander was a year ago compared with where he had been before the bounce-back. Think, too, about the kind of mental and tactical change he had to go through to make that journey.
Verlander feels great. About his health. About his place on the team. About the promising young guys in the rotation he hopes to continue to mentor.
About the Tigers owner, Mike Ilitch, and the team’s decision to bring back the veterans one more time to make a run at the playoffs.
“In all my time here, I’ve never walked into spring training and thought we didn’t have a chance,” Verlander said.
He thinks they have a chance this year, too. They do. At least a chance.
Whether it works out depends on health, a bit of luck, the development of a few young arms and Verlander, who turns 34 in February and has to show that the pitcher we saw a year ago wasn’t a fluke.
His manager, Brad Ausmus, doesn’t think it was.
“I expect (Verlander) to be exactly where he was,” he said. “I expect him to be the ace, to be the horse.”
It’s easy to take for granted a star athlete’s performance. After all, Verlander was as naturally gifted a pitcher as baseball offered, and when he finally returned to form, the temptation was to cite those heavenly gifts.
And yet here was a power pitcher with diminished power. A strikeout pitcher who couldn’t strike anyone out.
He had burned hot and bright on the national baseball stage and offered up as nasty a combination of velocity and offspeed stuff as any other pitcher in the last decade.
When he won the Cy Young Award and MVP awards in 2011 and followed that with a secondplace Cy Young finish in 2012, we figured he was settling in for an all-time run.
By 2014, it felt like the run might be done.
He had injured his core muscle and needed surgery early that year. Strained his triceps the year after that.
In both seasons, his ERA ballooned. He lost speed off that 100-mph fastball and some timing and control.
Toward the end of the 2015 season, as Verlander began to regain his health, the control of his fastball returned. A tweak in the delivery of his slider helped, too. This combo was enough to get big-league hitters out.
Besides, even though he was no longer throwing 100, he could reach the mid-90s. Sometimes close to 96 or 97 when needed.
That helped psychologically, to know that a version of his former self existed. It was sheathed in a savvier, more experienced, more patient pitcher.
“He made some adjustments,” Ausmus said. “He made some adjustments to his preparation. He toned back his throwing between starts.”
So, what does Verlander ascribe to his success last year, when he finished second in Cy Young voting?
“The easy answer is health,” he said. The complicated answer? He adapted. He grinded.
“I don’t ever look back,” he said. “I keep trudging along.”
Verlander doesn’t set goals, other than to get to the World Series every year. He fears that if he sets goals for himself each season, he might relax, and he doesn’t want to relax. He wants to keep moving, toward the Hall of Fame.
“That’s not a one-year thing,” he said.
No, it’s a year-after-year thing, something Verlander showed he knows how to do. Now he has to do it again. He’s counting on it. So is his team.
Windsor writes for the Detroit Free Press, part of the USA TODAY Network.