Heading into the All-Star break, Justin Verlander is having an incredible season and has pitched the Tigers to 1st place in the Central division. Verlander has been one of the most consistently great American League pitchers over the first 6 years of his career, but this season he's been even better with career bests in ERA and WHIP. Check out his stats for the season so far:
W-L ERA WHIP SO
12-4 2.15 0.87 147
Included in those stats are a no-hitter and 2 complete game shutouts. He's been the only consistent starter for the Tigers and he's been so good it's almost all they need. If the Tigers could get a decent 2nd starter, we might make some noise in the playoffs. I'm still upset the Tigers let Jair Jurrjens go and decided to stick with the mediocre (at-best) Rick Porcello. Look at Jurrjens stats:
W-L ERA WHIP SO
12-3 1.87 1.03 65
Can you imagine if we had both of those guys as our 1-2 punch? Man. It would almost be Schilling-Johnson-esque. Anyway back to Verlander. He's been can't miss. I usually don't watch regular-season baseball because its 162 games long and it just doesn't seem to mean anything until September, but now I just want to see Verlander pitch. It's like one of those guys in his prime that you never want to miss. You want to see everything, remember all of his great performances. Like Pedro from 1999-2001 (I just read Bill Simmons Red-Sox book, give me a break, and yes I'm a wannabe), Roy Halladay a few years ago on the Blue Jays, Randy Johnson, Curt Schilling, etc. The Tigers haven't had a guy like this in a long time (think Mark Fidrych, who was great for all of 1 year). A shutdown ace that can bring your team out of any slump that's special to watch because you only see him every 5 games. We have a pretty large payroll (not Yankees or Red Sox territory, but 10th in MLB), but we don't draw the same free agents (Manny Ramirez, CC Sabathia, Curt Schilling, Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford, Mark Texiera, Jason Giambi, AJ Burnett, the A-Rod "Trade", just a few examples) as the heavy-hitters and don't seem to have the same luck in the draft (Jeter, Rivera, Posada, Pedroia, Lester, Youkilis, etc.). When we do get lucky in the draft (see Curtis Granderson), we end up trading our players due to poor management to the heavy-hitters (Granderson is now on the Yankees and 2nd in MLB with 25 HRs). Verlander has been one of the only great draft picks that has stayed with us and easily the best in the last 10 years. He's always been in the top 5 pitchers in the AL, but never quite good enough to win a Cy Young. That's going to change this year. He pitched his 2nd no-hitter in May and since then he's been lights out. Look at the games he's had since May 29th:
Date Opponent Result IP H ER BB SO
May 29 vs BOS W 3-0 7.2 4 0 2 3
June 4 @ CHW W 4-2 8.0 7 2 1 7
June 9 vs SEA W 4-1 8.0 5 1 1 10
June 14 vs CLE W 4-0 9.0 2 0 1 12
June 25 vs ARI W 6-0 8.0 4 0 1 14
June 30 vs NYM W 5-2 7.2 7 1 2 6
July 5 @ LAA L 1-0 7.2 7 1 2 8
July 10 vs KC W 2-1 7.2 6 0 0 9
7-1 and his only loss was a 1-0 loss to the Angels. He won every start in June. He's pitched at least 7.2 innings in every game. He gives you a quality start every time (he's pitched at least 6 innings every game this season). Amazing stretch over his last 8 starts including a 2-hit complete game shutout. He's been an ace in every sense of the word and the stats back it up.
Wins - 2nd
IP - 1st
ERA - 3rd
WHIP - 1st
SO - 1st
CG - 3rd
SHO - 4th
Those are his rankings in MLB. He's going to his 3rd All-Star game and he's got my vote for the Cy Young. Hopefully he can keep the Tigers in 1st and we'll have some baseball here in October.
- Matt
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