In his return to the mound for the Astros after Tommy John surgery, the two-time Cy Young Award winner has found early success this season.
with a 13-run outburst Saturday, it fell to Verlander to secure a series win for the Astros, who began Sunday tied for first in the American League West with the suddenly potent Los Angeles Angels. He worked around a 30-pitch first inning to hold the Nationals hitless into the fifth as Houston secured an
No one in baseball would have blamed Verlander if he came back a slightly lesser version of himself — if he didn’t average nearly 95 mph on his fastball as he did 15 years ago, if he couldn’t handle the same innings load early in the season as he may have a decade ago. But Verlander would have blamed himself.
This is Verlander at 39 — unsatisfied but unburdened by the all-consuming emotional investment the game once required. He still wears his big headphones on start days to shut out teammates and reporters. He spent the hours before Sunday’s warmups hunched over a computer in the video room, chewing on a blue pen he occasionally used to take notes, sipping on coffee and internalizing a game plan.
“The first 10 years of my career, it was just watch video, see swings, read swings, react — this dance between me and the hitter. That doesn’t happen as often nowadays. But I think it’ll become more en vogue again. You’re seeing guys work on feel more again. I mean, the great guys always do.”Verlander purposely didn’t watch the Astros during the 2021 season until they made it to October. He didn’t need to be immersed in competition as he would have in his younger years.
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