It’s quite amazing how quickly the generations turn over in baseball. You had the feeling that Justin Verlander would always be in mid-career, top of his game, racking up the innings and the strikeouts that would lead him, one day, a long way in the future, to the Hall of Fame.
It comes as a shock, then, at the mid point of the 2017 season, to realize that Verlander is a veteran, 34 years old, half way through his eleventh full season as a starter for the Detroit Tigers. It comes as even more of a shock that in this eleventh season he appears to be only a little more than merely mortal, and only a shadow of the Justin Verlander who regularly struck out double digits while keeping his opponents off the board.
On the face of it, the pitching matchup should have overwhelmingly favoured the Tigers, with an uncertain Aaron Sanchez going up against Justin Verlander. But this is not the Justin Verlander of old, and the Tigers are not the perennial contenders of recent years. Like Toronto, but more so, the Tigers are coming up to a decision point in the season as to whether to try to hold on to their major assets, or see what returns they can get in prospect capital.
Verlander, with his huge contract and his storied record, has been a major point of discussion coming up to the trade deadline, since the Tigers’ general manager has been open about his desire to cut payroll and willingness to listen to offers for any and all of his veteran players. But Verlander’s situation has been complicated by the fact that he’s struggled this year for the first time in his career, entering tonight’s game with a record of 5-6 and an ERA of 4.73, though in his last start, in Cleveland before the All-Star break, he did pitch six and two thirds innings and gave up only one earned run, “only” striking out six.
As for Aaron Sanchez, you could almost hear the unfurrowing of the brows of the long foreheads in the gilded private offices of Blue Jays’ upper management after his gritty six-inning, no earned runs, performance against Verlander tonight.
In his first start after returning from the disabled list, last Friday at home against Houston, Sanchez completely lost the strike zone in the early going, and exited after only one and two thirds innings, leaving his team in an 8-0 hole that would eventually turn into a 12-2 Houston rout.
Tonight, against an admittedly less imposing Tigers’ lineup, Sanchez turned that around, holding Detroit to one unearned run in his six-inning stint. He allowed nine base runners, seven hits and two walks, and only struck out four, but was able to pitch his way out of every traffic jam he faced, and kept the Tigers in check while his mates gradually built a lead that even the tired Toronto bullpen found easy to protect for the win.
For the first four scoreless innings there was little to choose between the young Sanchez and the veteran Verlander. In fact, Verlander had a little the better of it, as he allowed only two hits and a walk while striking out four on 77 pitches. Meanwhile, Sanchez gave up four hits and a walk, while also striking out four, on 71 pitches. If the pitch count totals seem to suggest to you that there were a lot of deep counts and long at-bats, you’d be right.
But it was Verlander who cracked first, in the top of the fifth, thanks to a home run to left by leadoff hitter Steve Pearce, and with the help of a Kevin Pillar drive to right that clanked off the glove of J.D. Martinez and went for a two-base error. With Pillar on second and nobody out, Darwin Barney hit a grounder up the middle that was played on to first by the shortstop Jose Iglesias, but Pillar reacted well to the direction of the hit and advance to third, so that he was able to score on the sacrifice fly by Jose Bautista, for a two-run Toronto lead.
In the bottom of the inning a rather unlucky error charged to Josh Donaldson allowed the Tigers to cut the lead in half, but Sanchez was able to minimize the damage by getting an inning-ending double-play ball to short off the bat of Miguel Cabrera. Iglesias had led off with an infield single into the hole at short, and Alex Presley had shot one through the right side to send Iglesias to third.
In an eerie mirror image of the double play that Donaldson initiated in support of Stroman against Houston last week, Alex Avila lashed a liner right at Donaldson, who gloved it and fired it to first to try to double off Presley. But this time his throw was low, and somehow deflected off Presley, and skipped past Smoak. Iglesias, who had held at third on the play, was free to scamper home with Detroit’s first run. Presley had also moved up to second on the error, so it was just as well that Sanchez walked Justin Upton, setting up the double play situation for which Cabrera obliged, and after five innings it was 2-1 Jays, each pitcher having given up an unearned run, but Verlander had also coughed up the Pearce homer..
When Verlander came out for the sixth, it was a struggle, and he was only able to retire one batter, the leadoff hitter Donaldson, who finally fanned on the tenth pitch of his at bat. That was the swan song for Verlander. He walked Smoak and Morales, and Tigers’ manager Brad Ausmus decided his ace was done for the night. Unfortunately for Verlander’s stats, Shane Greene, who replaced him, gave up an infield single to Steve Pearce and then walked Kevin Pillar to force in Smoak, whose run of course was counted against the Tigers’ starter.
Now leading 3-1, Sanchez finished off his night with an eleven-pitch sixth inning, despite giving up a one-out single to Victor Martinez, after Kevin Pillar had made a great sliding catch on a liner by J. D. Martinez for the first out.
Warwick Saupold, now that’s a name that needs some investigation! The fellow with the unusual name was next up on the hill for the Tigers, and Jose Bautista, no respecter of people with distinguished names, greeted him with a solo shot to left that extended the Toronto lead to 4-1. Saupold escaped the inning without further damage, despite walking two; he was helped out of his jam by getting Morales to ground into a well-turned 3-6-1 double play.
Following his usual pattern, Jays’ manager John Gibbons brought in Danny Barnes in the seventh, after the end of Sanchez’ effective six innings. Barnes got the first two outs, then Avila reached on a roller out behind second that Darwin Barney ran down but had no play on. Then Barnes retired Upton on a fly ball to centre.
The usual pattern of Barnes-Tepera-Osuna-for-the-save became unnecessary when Blaine Hardy, brought in to pitch the eighth, ran into trouble with walks, and couldn’t nail down the third out in the inning before giving up three more runs, Donaldson capping off the rally with a rare two-out base hit with the bases loaded. With one out Pearce delivered his third hit of the game, a rope to left for a single. Hardy walked Pillar, struck out Barney for the second out, walked Bautista, and walked Martin to force in the fifth Toronto run. Then Donaldson delivered Pillar and Bautista, and for once we had some insurance runs.
Brad Ausmus finally pulled Hardy and brought in another left-hander, Daniel Stumpf, to pitch to Smoak, who hit a hard grounder to Castellanos at third on the first pitch to end the inning.
With the six-run lead, it was Joe Biagini who came in instead of Ryan Tepera to pitch the bottom the bottom of the eighth, and he fared much better than in his last outing against Houston last Sunday, when he gave up four runs. This time he retired Cabrera and both of the Martinez boys on 16 pitches.
Stumpf stayed on for the ninth, and quickly struck out Morales and Tulowitzki before giving up an opposite-field double to Zeke Carrera and walking Pillar, but then he caught Barney looking to finish off the Jays, having struck out the side.
Jeff Beliveau mopped up for Toronto in the Tigers’ ninth. With one out he gave up a solo home run to Andrew Romine to close the gap to 7-2, and then a single to Iglesias before striking out Presley and ending the game by inducing Dixon Machado, hitting for Avila, to ground out to Donaldson at third.
We did learn one interesting thing in the bottom of the ninth, though. We learned that Hunter Wendelstedt, working behind the plate tonight, has a pretty easy-going notion about what players can say to him in the heat of the moment. For some reason you can hear quite clearly on the broadcast what the players say at the plate in the Tigers’ ball park. When Wendelstedt punched out Nick Castellanos to lead off the ninth, on a pitch that appeared to be on the black up and away, Castellanos’ shouted “no fuckin’ way” and Wendelstedt did not react at all. Interesting: he’s an older, more experienced umpire. Any connection?
A good start to the second half of the season. Let’s see if Francisco Liriano can keep it going tomorrow night. Time’s a-wasting!
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