Verlander (cramp) leaves Tigers game, but says he's fine
Tigers don't anticipate Verlander will miss his next start after arm cramp today, but he'll be re-evaluated Saturday
DUNEDIN, Fla. – Maybe it was the Starbucks coffee he drank this morning.
Maybe it was the water that Justin Verlander didn't drink on his drive to the ballpark for his start against the Toronto Blue Jays. He felt a little bit dehydrated, he said.
Or maybe it was the mechanical adjustments he's made since his last start. He feels like he's extending his arm more, he said.
Whatever it was, it caused the Detroit Tigers right-hander to cramp up in the third inning of his fifth start of the spring and it forced him to leave the game. The game was washed out with the Blue Jays up 4-1 in the fifth inning.
Verlander left with a right triceps cramp, the team said, and will be re-evaluated Saturday. He is expected to make his next start.
"It doesn't seem like anything serious," he said. "Talking to the trainers, it's not near my shoulder. It's nowhere near my elbow. It feels like a cramp."
And he felt it while warming up for his third inning of work, after throwing a curveball. When he extended his arm, "my tricep kind of grabbed on me a little bit," he said. "From that point on, the rest of the pitches I threw, it was a similar feeling," Verlander said. "It was weird. I've never really felt anything like that before."
He doesn't think that he is injured, he said.
"I kind of sensed what it was," he said. "Usually you got a pretty good feel for your body and if it's an injury or if it's something else. I didn't feel injured. I was able to throw."
And if it was a regular season game, Verlander said, he doesn't know if he would have called manager Brad Ausmus, pitching coach Jeff Jones and assistant trainer Matt Rankin out to the mound, where they converged for a lengthy discussion before he left the game at Florida Auto Exchange Stadium.
"I kind of battled myself mentally out there with that aspect of it," he said. "I threw a few pitches and I was like, 'Let me throw a few, see if it gets better.' It stayed about the same. Then I'm out there thinking, 'This is spring training, why, there's no reason to battle through it and risk injury if it's not injured.' So that's why I kind of said, 'Hey, come out here and let's talk about it.'"
And before he did that, before he felt the cramp in his pitching arm, Verlander was superb in two-plus innings.
"I felt great," he said. "I felt really good early. I thought that was the best my stuff has looked in a long time. Obviously you don't want to come out of the game like that but looking at the first two innings, man, I couldn't be more pleased with that."
Verlander threw 40 pitches over 2 2/3 innings. He allowed one run on one hit – a home run that he termed "a stupid pitch" to Dalton Pompey – with two strikeouts and a walk.
"He wanted to face one more batter," Ausmus said.
His fastball sat in the mid-90 m.p.h. range on the stadium radar gun, his curveball was "excellent" – the one he threw to nearly freeze Russell Martin was the best he's thrown in two years, he said – and his changeup was "good."
"He was very impressive," Jones said. "I think everything. He threw a couple curveballs that I hadn't seen out of him all spring."
After exiting the game, Verlander treated the tricep with ice, he said. He does not expect to undergo a MRI.
"I don't know what to tell you other than I just felt cramps," he said. "Even sitting here now, my whole body just kind of feels tight. I think it was a combination of things. I think mechanical adjustments I made, I might be using my muscles slightly different and I also don't think I hydrated myself as well as I should have today."
But on a pitching front, all reports, from Verlander to Jones to Ausmus, were widely positive. "Best I've seen him," Ausmus said.
Period?
"You can put an exclamation point on it if you want."
Contact Anthony Fenech: afenech@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @anthonyfenech.
