DETROIT — A very strange thing happened Sunday afternoon at Comerica Park.
Detroit Tigers right-hander Justin Verlander came out after five laborious innings, and your gut feeling was that the reliever taking his place was going to give the club a better chance to win.
It used to be that opposing batters couldn’t wait for Verlander to come out of the game. But now the prospect of facing left-hander Drew Smyly definitely was the less appealing choice.
Smyly came onto pitch 2-2/3 scoreless innings to stop the bleeding, and Detroit came back for an unorthodox 7-5 win over the Boston Red Sox.
The Tigers scored three times in a crazy eighth inning that featured two Boston errors (including a controversial dropped fly ball by right fielder Daniel Nava) and a two-run single by Prince Fielder.
“I was not good, but we won,” Verlander said. “I didn’t pitch well, and I haven’t been pitching great of late. . . . The team picked me up. Smyly came in and shut the door.”
Smyly, a starter in waiting, has saved the Tigers virtually every time he’s called upon. He’s 3-0 with two saves and a 1.75 ERA. And in his past three outings, Smyly has allowed no runs on four hits and no walks in 7-2/3 innings with seven strikeouts.
Verlander was the American League’s MVP and Cy Young Award winner in 2011 and finished second in Cy Young voting in 2012. But now he’s 8-5 with a 3.90 ERA, and no longer an All-Star Game selection lock after starting that game last year.
He has had games and even stretches this season when he appeared to be on the verge of recapturing that dominance. But he gave up four runs Sunday and has had consecutive five-inning starts. Verlander has allowed nine runs in his past 10 innings, with a 2.10 WHIP that is roughly double what he has posted in recent seasons.
“He continues to have command issues,” Tigers manager Jim Leyland said. “The roughest part was getting it where he wanted it to go. And command has been the issue.
“It’s just an issue that you’ve got to figure out. It’s just not that smooth of a rhythm delivery for him, whether he’s rushing it or what.”
Verlander used to mow down the 7-8-9 hitters, and they batted .197 against him last year. But the bottom three went 2-for-5 with two walks and a hit batter for the Red Sox on Sunday, and those three spots in the lineup are feasting off him with a .282 average this year.
Left-handed hitters are having only marginally better success this season, but right-handers have gone from .222 in 2012 to .287 this season.
I asked Verlander if he could point to any reason for that significant increase.
“It’s all location,” Verlander said. “That’s what it all comes down to. And the down-and-away spot for righties is a difficult spot for me this year.”
Verlander said “the stuff’s there” but the location is not. He added that he’s leaving too many pitches over the plate, and so it’s all about the mechanics he will have to work out with pitching coach Jeff Jones.
Mechanics, which come down to repeating deliveries and release points with consistency, are what Smyly points to for his success.
“I like where my mechanics are right now,” Smyly said. “I’m throwing strikes and getting ahead.”
Verlander’s mechanics are out of line. Tigers radio analyst Jim Price, a catcher for five seasons in Detroit, reasoned on Sunday that it must be the release point.
“The fastball feel has not been good,” Price said on the air. “It’s mind-boggling. . . . It’s a different Justin. I don’t see it changing. We’ve got to get used to it.”
It can be exasperating when a pitcher as great as Verlander, 30, becomes just another pretty good pitcher. But he overcame a horrible season in 2008, when he was 11-17 with a 4.84 ERA. This is a minor adjustment compared to getting back in line after that.
So, don’t label him a middle-of-the-rotation starter just yet.
But for now, that’s what Verlander is. There’s no way to sugarcoat it.
