No doubt about it, Justin Verlander's a terrific pitcher. Most would likely rank him in the top 3, if not better, in all of major league baseball. As the reigning American League Cy Young award winner and MVP, when JV's got his good "stuff" he can be virtually unhittable.
Who's the best pitcher ever? Roger Clemens? Nolan Ryan? Bob Gibson? Warren Spahn? Cy Young himself? Nobody can say for sure. It's like debating who was the most beautiful woman of all time. Everybody can throw out their choice, but there's really no definitive answer.
Yet even the best of the best are going to have their bad days. Depending on a few variables, even the people we have put on a pedestal will occasionally come across in such a manner that prompts us to say, "Damn, that was ugly".
Same with the pitchers. Verlander's cruising along this year with a record of 11-6. Over his career, he's 118-62. Basically that means he wins about 2 out of 3. That percentage might not be so hot in big time tennis, or team USA Olympic basketball, but in major league baseball it's pretty darn good.
But there's going to be days. To much fanfare, Verlander was the American League's starting pitcher in this year's All Star game. He got hammered for 5 runs and didn't make it out of the first inning. JV would later say, "That wasn't me". Hogwash. It was exactly him. Perhaps JV just thought he could take the mound, start throwing 100 MPH fastballs, and expect the opposing batters to fall like dominoes. What he seemed to have overlooked was those "other" guys swinging the bats weren't National League All-Stars because of their looks. They can hit or they wouldn't be there. Some say good pitching beats good hitting, but that's not always true. A lot of it is luck. If the batters are hitting the ball right at defenders the pitcher looks good. If they're hitting it "where they ain't", that same pitcher probably isn't going to last very long in the game.
The thing with Verlander is, it appears he's become so accustomed to being successful that he looks befuddled when everything doesn't go according to plan. On the rare occasion he gets lit up by the opposing batters hitting rockets all over the park, Verlander gets this look in his eyes like the Klingons just landed in right field and, oh my, what do I do now?
It happened to him earlier tonight against the Cleveland Indians. JV was cruising along with a lead and threw a high fastball that was deposited into the right-centerfield bleachers for a home run. It happens. On the very next pitch to the very next batter, he threw the same pitch in the same place with the same result. Gone. Verlander had that look about him like -- this isn't supposed to be happening. Maybe not, but if a major league hitter is looking for a particular pitch in a particular area of the strike zone, and he gets it, sometimes those balls have a way of becoming souvenirs for the fans while the hitter trots around the bases.
Can't remember for sure who said it, but a big time hitter once remarked, "It really doesn't matter if a guy's throwing 90, 95, 100, or whatever. If he thinks he can just blow a fastball by us all game long, he won't be around very long. We'll adjust our timing, speed it up, and be all over it. The good pitchers are the ones that keep you guessing with different pitches and different speeds in different locations".
Verlander has all that, of course, but sometimes Tiger fans seem to think whenever he takes the mound it's an automatic win. It's not. He's really good, but certainly not unbeatable. Let's not forget, the other guys swinging the bats know a thing or two about hitting or they wouldn't be major leaguers. What's the difference between a pop-up and a home run? Maybe half an inch, depending on how the bat strikes the ball.
Verlander could very well go on to become a Hall-of Famer, or he could crash and burn in the next few years, even assuming he stays healthy, never a given. Nobody knows.
But in the meantime, perhaps Meatloaf sang it best back in the day ---
Two out of three ain't bad.
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