Verlander pleased with first start of spring training
JUPITER, Fla. — Home is a relative term for Justin Verlander right now. He spends his winters in Jupiter, Fla., which is where he made his first start Grapefruit League start of the year on Saturday, but it wasn’t his home ballpark. It was a different uniform and a different catcher than the last time he pitched in a game, which was all the way back in November in Game 5 of the World Series.
Saturday marked a new era for the newest Mets’ ace and early signs indicate that this era will be a successful one. Verlander allowed one earned run on two hits and stuck out three in the Mets’ 15-4 win over the Miami Marlins at Roger Dean Chevrolet Stadium. He used all of his pitches, commanded them and hit 96 mph on the gun.
All things considered, it was a pretty solid debut.
“I really just wanted to go out and feel like I was doing things very normally and see if there is anything that would need to be adjusted,” Verlander said. “There’s maybe just like one or two things, but not major, so that’s good. After that, it’s just like, how’s my stuff? Control felt pretty good. But I don’t want to be too nit-picky this time of year.”
Verlander mixed in a handful of changeups in an attempt to refine a pitch that he’s been working on for years. He won’t throw it without “conviction” but it’s becoming a viable pitch for the 40-year-old righthander.
“Guys like him are always searching for another look and another something else that the advance guys have to prepare to defend,” manager Buck Showalter said. “He’s not going to have it if he can’t use it.”
Throwing the changeup
and executing it well was a bonus. This start was simply a building block. Verlander needed to get a feel for being on the mound again, repeating his delivery and increasing his velocity.
He threw 35 pitches, 28 for strikes for an 80% rate. He got whiffs on more than 10 pitches, mostly on his four-seam fastball.
The only run came from Luis Arraez in the first inning. Arraez led off with an opposite-field single that looked to be foul but looped fair at the last second. With two out and one on, Jean Segura doubled to right-center to drive him home and was then thrown out trying to get to third to end the inning.
Some adjustments will be needed to adapt to the pitch clock, though Verlander isn’t concerned. Like many pitchers, he sees some advantages,
but he’s still trying to get used to working on a 15-20 second pace. Typically, Verlander likes to begin the inning by walking around the back of the mound and he’ll do the same after strikeouts, but that cuts into the time he has to face the first batter.
Verlander thinks he could shave a few seconds off of that walk by staying closer to the mound. He doesn’t want to rush, so he’s hoping to get a feel for the pace this spring.
“Today, I kind of got on the mound a couple times and looked up and I was like, ‘Oh, I’ve only got seven seconds,’” he said. “If me and weren’t on the same page, it could have been a problem. I really never want to throw a pitch without conviction behind it. I don’t want to just throw something just because we ran out of time.”
Verlander isn’t going to tinker with the timing like
his teammate Max Scherzer, at least not yet. He wants to continue facing big league hitters throughout the spring, which means throwing in Grapefruit League games instead of simulated games on the back fields. That doesn’t mean he won’t skip a Grapefruit League game to stay back in Port St. Lucie, but it’s not an ideal way for him to get a sense of where he is in his progression toward the regular season.
He’s still a long way away from the regular season, but the Mets’ newest ace seems to be settling into this new team in his old home quite nicely.
“First time in competition, you’ve got to allow your body a chance to get used to moving and moving fast again,” Verlander said. “So for the first start, I think all in all, I checked all the boxes that I would like.”