The Biggest Loser?
By Blake VandeBunte • Sep 26th, 2008 • Category: 2008 season, Justin VerlanderJustin Verlander will start on the mound tonight as the Tigers are set to play the Tampa Bay Rays. Verlander is 10-17 this season and will be making his last start as he tries to avoid loss number eighteen.
Verlander is currently tied with Barry Zito of the San Francisco Giants for the Major League lead in losses. He pretty much has the American League crown sewn up and if he losses tonight he’s got a pretty good shot at being the biggest loser in all of baseball. Hmm.
Verlander has made only three career starts against the Tampa Bay franchise and has a record of 0-1. He has an ERA of 4.76 which is his fifth worst mark against any team. It’s also worth noting that those Rays teams he faced were all at least 90 game losers.
Here are some Tigers who have finished seasons with exactly 18 losses:
- Jack Morris
- Doyle Alexander
- Mickey Lolich
- Dizzy Trout
All of the players listed above had very long and productive careers, so losing 18 games is not the kiss of death. Obviously, it would be great to see Verlander go out on a high note and avoid picking up his 18th loss of the season, but he has been off for most of the season. Over his last five starts he is 0-4 with an ERA of 7.92. It can’t get worse can it?
Blake VandeBunte is a posting fiend.
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Verlander has a high bapip and has had bad luck with leaving games with runners on and the bullpen allowing many inherited runners to score.Also some porous defense making him pitch 4 and 5 out innings doesn’t help. He does have some inconsistency this year with throwing strikes, brought by himself rushing his windup and opening up his front shoulder, and pitching coach hernandez trying to make him harness his fastball from the 96-7 - 99-100 range to 91-93. This also caused problems for him. His homeruns per 9 inninngs is 1 every 11, has less hits than innings pitched, somewhat elevated walks per 9 innings at 3.9 per 9 innings. As long as his end of year physical shows no health problems with shoulder or elbow, he will and should be fine for 2009 and put this season behind him.
I know he’s been pretty unlucky this season. However, his pitch counts are a major reason to be concerned in my opinion. I don’t know what the cause is for that but it’s a pretty big issue if he doesn’t get that fixed.