In his last game, a heavyweight match against Johan Santana, rookie starting pitcher Justin Verlander failed to strikeout a batter, but allowed six hits and walk no one in the 2-0 win. Tonight, he one-upped himself against the Kansas City Royals throwing a complete game shutout striking out seven and yielding just five hits and one walk in the 8-0 win. He dropped his earned run average to a miniscule 2.70 and raised his K:BB ratio to 2.3 (34:15) notching his sixth win against three losses. Say what you will about the quality of competition (or lack thereof), but a complete game shutout as a rookie in the majors is a feat no matter who it is against.
Verlander was backed nicely by his offense as they jumped all over Jeremy Affeldt, scoring five in the second and three more in the fifth. Everyone had at least one hit while Magglio Ordonez and Omar Infante each had three. Brandon Inge clubbed his 10th home run raising his pace to 37 for the season. There is almost no way he’ll reach that lofty mark, but you cannot say enough for far he has come as a major league player.
Year AB AVG OBP SLG
2001 189 .180 .215 .238
2002 321 .202 .266 .333
2003 330 .203 .265 .339
2004 408 .287 .340 .453
2005 616 .261 .330 .419
2006 130 .223 .299 .492
His on-base percentage and average thus far in 2006 leave plenty to be desired, but he has made the most of his hits with 17 extra-base hits. He isn’t great, but after his 2001-2003 seasons, I pegged him as one of the worst players in all of the major leagues. Now, at age 29 he is a solid if unspectacular everyday player capable sustained periods of big offense.
I won’t rain on Verlander’s parade by pointing out the utter incompetence of the Royals. We all know about it, but if it were easy to dominate even the worst teams then we would routinely see no hitters and complete game shutouts against them, but we don’t meaning it is always an accomplishment. There were 63 CGShOs in 2005 and the league is on pace almost the same amount in 2006. I’ll post the WPC tomorrow morning when it becomes available, though I doubt it shows any significant variance over the course of the game.
Detroit Getting Pub Elsewhere
At this point, there isn’t really anyone who hasn’t noticed what the Tigers are doing through 44 games and many sites and media outlets have addressed it. The folks over at Hardball Times.com are the latest as Tigerblog.net writer Brian Borawski put together a piece examining the Tigers huge start. In keeping with the HBT theme, Mr. Borawski does a fine job with the breakdown.
Baseball By Paul 