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In the deciding Game 5 of the division series, the Tigers' Justin Verlander tossed a four-hit shutout with 11 strikeouts against the Oakland A's.
Derek Lowe has pitched for 16 seasons in the major leagues and has been teammates with such pitching luminaries as Pedro Martinez, Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson, all of whom he reveres.
But Lowe holds a special regard for Justin Verlander, the Detroit Tigers starter who piles up innings, strikeouts and complete games and who will take on the startlingly inept Yankee lineup in Game 3 of the American League Championship Series on Tuesday in Detroit.
"I only saw him pitch live one time, and it was one of the coolest things I've ever seen," Lowe said.
It was May 24 of this season, and Lowe was sitting on the bench watching as the team he was playing on then, the Cleveland Indians, did battle with Verlander and the Tigers. Verlander gave up a first-inning home run to the leadoff hitter Shin-Soo Choo on a changeup.
According to Lowe, Verlander was throwing his fastball around 92 to 94 miles per hour — except when he was in a predicament with runners on base and had to add some velocity to that pitch, or some bite to his curve.
Then, in typical Verlander fashion, as the game progressed into the later innings, he started throwing still harder.
"By the ninth inning, he was literally throwing 101, 102 miles an hour," Lowe said, "and I trust the Cleveland gun because I pitched there. That, to me, I don't understand, that type of stuff.
"To see the way he can elevate his game once somebody gets on base — now we're going from 92 to 97 just like that. Again, that was the first time I laid eyes on him. He didn't win the Cy Young and the M.V.P. for no reason."
Lowe was referring to 2011, when Verlander won both of those awards in a rare achievement for a pitcher. He went 24-5 with a 2.40 earned run average that season and struck out a major-league-leading 250 batters. With a fastball that comes out of his hand so effortlessly and improves over the course of a game, and a changeup and curveball that hitters must account for as well, it's really no mystery why Verlander is as successful as he is.
Facing that kind of pitcher in Detroit's Comerica Park, trailing by two games to none in a best-of-seven series, is hardly the way for the Yankees to come out of a slump that has imperiled their championship ambitions.
Perhaps Lowe chose to recount this particular tale because it had an encouraging ending, for the Yankees. The Indians won that May game, 2-1, and the lesson is clear to see, even if Verlander's fastball is not. Verlander is indeed one the best pitchers of his generation and remarkable in his ability to stay in games beyond the point that other good pitchers do. He went 17-8 this year with a 2.64 earned run average and again led all of baseball in strikeouts (239) and innings pitched (2381/3).
But he is not perfect, as those eight losses this year demonstrate. And the record shows that the Yankees can score off him. On April 27, they tagged him for four earned runs in six innings of a 7-6 victory. Verlander did not take the loss, but he gave up homers to Russell Martin and Alex Rodriguez and was not overpowering.
And on June 3, two starts after the Cleveland game that had Lowe gaping from the bench, the Yankees pummeled Verlander for all five runs in a 5-1 victory, with Derek Jeter and Rodriguez hitting home runs. The injured Jeter won't be playing on Tuesday, but presumably Rodriguez will.
Finally, on Aug. 6, Verlander did what he does to most teams. He limited the Yankees to two runs in a 7-2 victory, and struck out 14. The Yankees made him work for it, though. He threw 132 pitches over eight innings, but as Lowe noted, he improved as the game progressed.
His last pitch, one of his signature eye-rolling curveballs, tied Ichiro Suzuki into a pretzel for the 14th strikeout.
"A lot of times great pitchers get nastier when there's men on base," Jeter said that night. "They bear down a little and he did that today."
Over all, Verlander's numbers against the Yankees are not eye-popping — a 5-4 won-loss record and a 3.74 E.R.A. Compare that with his record against, say, the Kansas City Royals: 15-2 with a 2.73 E.R.A. Or with his record against the National League: 19-2 with a 2.64 E.R.A.
Zach Schonbrun contributed reporting.
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