Verlander wins 18th
posted in 2007 season, KC Royals |Tigers split the weekend, but a few things of importance happened beyond the Cleveland Indians clinching the A.L. Central.
For one, with only a handful of games left, Magglio Ordonez is batting .358. It’s not like there’s a magic number for winning the mythical batting title, but he leads Ichiro by .007, so that’s pretty cool. Saturday, he hit his 50th double. Unfortunately, the Tigers lost.
Sunday, Detroit bounced back for its 85th win of the year. There’s a chance the Tigers can win 90. Not that it matters much, but hey, wins are good. But more importantly, Verlander won his 18th game of the season.
He has 35 wins in his first two full seasons, the most for a Tigers pitcher since Frank Lary also had 35 from 1955-56. (AP article)
Marcus Thames homered twice.
Six games remain.
Sphere It
First of all, great blog. Second of all, any thoughts on what’s caused Verlander’s increase in strikeouts this season? New pitch? New approach? Voodoo?
Sky,
Thanks for visiting. I’ll add your blog to the sidebar today.
The reason for Verlander’s increase in strikeouts, I don’t really know. He’s more mature and experienced though, so that probably helps. Baseball Prospectus had a piece on him last year that showed he didn’t pitch for strikeouts unless he needed strikeouts. If nobody was on base, he just pitched to get the ball in play, but a guy on third, he’d go for the K. That sorta thing. Maybe he gave it up and just pitches for the K more. I haven’t looked into it myself, admittedly.