CLEVELAND -- Progressive Field has not been kind to Justin Verlander over the course of his career, and the Tigers ace could not exorcise the demons on Thursday night.
The 33-year-old struggled mightily against the Cleveland Indians in his most recent outing, a 7-3 Tigers loss at Progressive Field. His 5.61 ERA at Progressive Field is now the third-highest ERA by an active pitcher in a single stadium with a minimum of 25 starts, according to ESPN Stats and Information data.
"Bottom line: I need to pitch better," Verlander said. "And I'm going to."
Verlander labored early, giving up three runs in the first inning for the second time in six starts. To put that into perspective, Verlander gave up just four runs in the first inning, in total, over the span of 20 starts last season, according to ESPN Stats and Information data. Furthermore, Verlander has now given up eight runs in the first inning of this season, which ties him for the second most in MLB, behind former teammate Alfredo Simon, who has nine.
"He was strong. He might have been a little too strong out of the gate, in terms of locating," Tigers manager Brad Ausmus said. "His velocity was good, [but] I don't think his breaking balls were as good as they have been in some of his good outings this year."
Verlander seemed to improve over the next three innings, looking particularly sharp in the fourth, when he retired the side with a mere six pitches. But he ran into trouble in the fifth inning, giving up a leadoff walk, a base hit and then a three-run blast to Francisco Lindor in succession that gave the Tribe a 7-2 edge.
After the game, Verlander bemoaned an ill-advised sartorial switch, when he opted to put on long sleeves prior to that fifth inning. In his last start, when the weather turned bitter, he struggled to get warm, so he tried to preempt the issue on Tuesday.
"I've never done that before, so I didn't think it would have any effect. I went out for my warm-ups and I don't think I threw one strike in warm-ups, and then I walked Santana and fell behind every batter," Verlander said. "So I'm not making excuses. That will just never happen again."
Detroit catcher James McCann, who returned to the lineup for the first time since suffering an ankle injury in the first week of the season, said he felt that just a few mistakes -- an at-bat against Mike Napoli, which resulted in a two-run, two-out double, and the back-breaking bomb to Lindor in the fifth -- proved costly.
"I think it was just a couple of pitches that we didn't execute. Napoli, we probably want to go up a little bit more there. Lindor, we fell behind and he took advantage," McCann said. "I'd just say it was a lack of execution on several pitches."
Verlander, whose outing came fresh on the heels of news that he and supermodel girlfriend Kate Upton got engaged before the season began, expressed faith in his arm moving forward, but he was disappointed with Tuesday's results.
"I felt good, just a bad job pitching," Verlander said. "I need to execute my pitches a little better. I need to a better job early in the game, and I need to never change into long sleeves ever again."
The subpar performance was a setback in what was a positive stretch for the 2011 American League Cy Young Award winner, who made a mechanical adjustment to his arm slot in recent weeks. Heading into Tuesday’s game, Ausmus praised Verlander’s consistency. Save for one bad start against Pittsburgh on April 11, he had been solid dating back to last season. The life on Verlander’s fastball had been encouraging. He was generating swings and misses with the heater. The fastball isn’t normally a swing-and-miss pitch and Verlander still got quite a few, especially against Cleveland on April 22.
“This guy has had one bad start since last July,” Ausmus said in the hours before Tuesday’s game.
Now, he has had two.
