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Justin Verlander is back and no one can stop him
Tuesday’s Say Hey, Baseball looks at Justin Verlander’s return to dominance, Wil Myers’ cycle, and the Mariners’ awful loss to the Angels.
Photo by Leon Halip/Getty Images
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The dominant Justin Verlander is back, and that’s bad news for opposing lineups everywhere. This isn’t just something we’re saying based on his first two starts of 2017, either: Verlander’s Monday against the Red Sox made it 20 consecutive games in which the right-hander has allowed three or fewer runs to score, and in just two of those games did opponents even get to three. Over that time, Verlander has posted a 1.91 ERA over 136 innings, striking out 10.6 batters per nine, and five times as many hitters as he’s walked. Seven of those starts saw Verlander allow just one run, and another two saw him blank opponents entirely.
It was hard to notice this dominance outside of Detroit in 2016, given Verlander’s first three months and 16 starts featured a 4.30 ERA and opponents slugging .419 against him. His second half brought him just shy of a Cy Young, though, and if he keeps on the pace he’s had over his last 20 games, falling short shouldn’t be a problem this year. Of course, there’s a whole lot of season left before we can even think about that sort of thing for more than a second, but it’s not like this is the first time Verlander has been unstoppable in his career, either.
This version of Verlander would go a long way toward keeping the Tigers relevant in the AL Central against the Indians, or at least in the wild card race. Again, this is April 11 we’re talking about all this on, so don’t get too excited. But if Verlander is this guy again, the one who won the Cy in 2011 while leading the AL in ERA, innings, starts, and strikeouts, then the Tigers have themselves a strong base to build on.
- Was the Angels’ seven-run ninth-inning comeback against the Mariners lucky, bad baseball, or just plain baseball? Grant Brisbee broke down the entire horrendous frame, event by event, to figure out the answer.
- Just so you have an occasional reminder that the Padres exist, Wil Myers managed to collect the first cycle of the 2017 season, and only the second in San Diego’s history.
- Yordano Ventura’s mother threw out the first pitch of the Royals’ home opener.
- Here’s Lindsey Adler taking The New York Times’ public editor to task on a recent complaint about the lack of box scores and local sports coverage in a national newspaper that exists outside of New York in the year 2017.
- You might want to claim that you jinxed Michael Pineda’s chance at a perfect game, but no, it was Martha Stewart.
- Patrick Dubuque believes it is healthy to occasionally remember that John Burkett exists.
- Can the Twins keep winning? Probably not! But Twinkie Town says there are reasons to be hopeful about this team.
- Noah Syndergaard stole the Phillie Phanatic’s ATV.
- The Phillies did a pretty cool thing for Autism Awareness night using their Twitter account.
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