Justin Verlander is supposed to be the ace on the Tigers' pitching staff. In his seven outings thus far this season, he's looked far from being that. In fact, during last night's 5-1 loss to the Red Sox, Verlander almost acted like he didn't care. He seemed 'detached'. When he allowed the 3 runs early, it didn't seem to phase him. He acted the same way when he gave up the 2-run homer to Kevin Youkilis in the later innings. I saw another shot of him chatting in the dugout with pitching coach Chuck Hernandez about something. Verlander just shrugged his shoulders, as if he were saying, "I don't really care, whatever", when Hernandez asked him something. If Verlander is such a competitor, you'd think he'd be working constantly on how to break out of this personal funk. Right now, he's an automatic loss everytime he takes the mound.
This is a guy who's fastball was clocked between 98-100 MPH each of the past two seasons. Now it's clocking somewhere in the mid 90's, and opposing hitters are catching up to it.
Verlander needs to sit for a few starts, do some bullpens, and try to regain the velocity that made him one of the most dominant pitchers in baseball the past two seasons. Don't be surprised if/when Dontrelle Willis returns from the DL that he replaces Verlander in the rotation and Armando Galarraga remains. Verlander would then be placed on the DL with a "tired Arm", allowing him time away to get "it" fixed.
Something has to happen with Verlander now. He's grossly ineffective in every start and is doing nothing to help this ball club dig itself out of the early season hole.
He's 1-6, people. Time for the Tigers' so-called ace to go back to the drawing board and figure it out.