Justin Verlander wraps up Detroit Tigers' bats in Houston Astros' 9-3 victory

Houston Astros right-hander Justin Verlander, one of the best pitchers in baseball history, returned to Comerica Park as a visiting starter for the fifth time in his 19-year MLB career.

He finished his outing Sunday as he did so many times during his stint with the Detroit Tigers from 2005-17: Sending an overmatched batter back to the dugout — in this case, Spencer Torkelson for the third time in a row.

"He's still got it," Torkelson said. "He's on his way to Cooperstown for a reason."

Verlander, a nine-time All-Star and three-time Cy Young winner, allowed just two hits in seven scoreless innings. The 41-year-old mixed and located his fastball, slider and curveball to perfection, including an array of elevated fastballs, to produce eight strikeouts and plenty of weak contact.

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It was a vintage performance.

"I made an adjustment," said Verlander, who bounced back from allowing seven runs to the New York Yankees in his previous start. "There's a benefit to having been through a lot of bad starts and not-too-successful times in your career. You have a lot of stuff to draw on from the past and what you need to do to fix it. There were a few adjustments I made."

The Tigers lost, 9-3, to the Astros in Sunday's series finale at Comerica Park, dropping two of three games. Verlander, making his fifth start of 2024 after a spring shoulder injury, limited the Tigers to two hits and two walks, throwing 95 pitches.

The Tigers (20-20) have lost seven of their past nine games, dropping three straight series. In the latest loss, four pitchers allowed 18 hits and three walks to the Astros. The offense, meanwhile, finished with six hits and three walks, though the four hits (and three runs) in the bottom of the ninth inning were too little, too late.

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Verlander retired the first 14 batters he faced.

"He was in complete control of the game," Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said. "He demonstrated all the arts of pitching that you can demonstrate as far as disrupting timing, finish fastballs, throwing balls when he wanted to, throwing strikes when he wanted to. He got into the game very comfortably."

Verlander realized his fastball would be a weapon when he struck out leadoff hitter Riley Greene with an elevated 92.2 mph heater in the first inning. His fastball, averaging 93 mph and maxing out at 95 mph, generated 10 of his 14 whiffs, with his slider and curveball getting two whiffs apiece.

"You never know until you step on the mound," Verlander said. "Being able to get a swing and miss on the fastball from Riley Greene there, and then see good results with it the rest of the game. I got a lot of out-front swings on the breaking ball. That's pitching. When everybody's on time for everything, you got to change some stuff."

His perfect game was broken up with two outs in the fifth inning, when Colt Keith topped a two-strike curveball that bounced slowly to third baseman Alex Bregman. The ball rolled too slow for Bregman's off-target throw to beat Keith to first base, resulting in an infield single — despite its meager 46.5 mph exit velocity.

Verlander ran into trouble in the sixth inning, when he walked Carson Kelly and Riley Greene and hit Mark Canha — all with two outs — to load the bases, but like vintage Verlander, he escaped the jam without damage.

The Tigers stranded the bases loaded, as Matt Vierling lined out to left field on Verlander's first-pitch slider in the strike zone.

Keith nearly hit the first home run of his MLB career in the second inning. He pulled an up-and-in 93.2 mph fastball from Verlander for a 383-foot flyout to right-center field, the most challenging part of the ballpark.

"I don't know what I got to do," said Keith, hitting .177 with a .446 OPS in 34 games. "I don't want to change because I'm feeling good. I got to find a way to pull the ball or something."

His second-inning blast would've been a homer in 15 of 30 parks, but not at Comerica Park.

"That's over the road in Erie, bro," Keith said. "That's out of the stadium in Toledo. I don't know. I got to hit my homers on the road. It's a big park."

Verlander flushed the rocky sixth inning and returned for the seventh. He worked around a one-out double from Andy Ibáñez to complete his brilliant start.

"I thought we had a good plan headed into it, capitalize on mistakes," Torkelson said. "We realized early on there weren't going to be very many mistakes to capitalize on. Tip your cap. He beat us. Back to the drawing board."

In the ninth inning, Akil Baddoo collected the Tigers' third hit with a triple to the right-field corner off right-handed reliever Seth Martinez's changeup in his first MLB plate appearance this season, following a recent promotion from Triple-A Toledo.

Baddoo then scored on a balk, trimming the deficit to 9-1.

Following Kerry Carpenter's single, Torkelson made it 9-3 with his first home run of the season, a two-run shot to left field off Martinez's middle-down sweeper. He hit the ball 405 feet with a 109 mph exit velocity.

It was Torkelson's first home run in his 38th game and 164th plate appearance.

"Of course, it's always on your mind," Torkelson said of his homer drought, which included an additional 57 plate appearances in spring training. "It's just a matter of sticking with your approach, trusting your swing, trusting what you do and knowing that it will come. Don't try to force it."

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Jack be nimble

Right-hander Jack Flaherty nearly matched Verlander, scoreless inning for scoreless inning. He allowed three runs on seven hits in 6⅔ innings, with the damage occurring in the sixth. He didn't allow a walk, and he racked up seven strikeouts.

In the sixth inning, Mauricio Dubón pushed an up-and-away fastball into right field for a single before Kyle Tucker flicked a down-and-in slider to right field for a two-run home run.

"He's a stud," Flaherty said. "It's not surprising."

It looked like a golf swing from Tucker, who leads MLB with 13 home runs.

"Left, right, offspeed, fastball, there's no pattern that you can go after Kyle Tucker and get him out consistently," Hinch said. "He's dangerous, and we got to witnesses it in the games he played."

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The two-run homer put the Astros ahead, 2-0.

The third run charged to Flaherty's tab scored in the seventh inning. Bregman hit a leadoff single, and after Flaherty ended his outing with back-to-back outs, Bregman scored for a 3-0 advantage on a single from Joey Loperfido off left-handed reliever Joey Wentz's second pitch.

Flaherty, whose fastball averaged 93.2 mph, generated 12 whiffs on 47 swings — a 25.5% whiff rate — with four fastballs, four sliders and four curveballs.

He has a 3.88 ERA in eight starts.

"I'm trying to attack and fill up the zone," Flaherty said. "I don't think I did a very good job of that. I felt all over the place, but I was able to get guys out and execute when I needed to. A couple double plays that these guys turned were huge to keep the pitch count down. Some plays that were huge allowed me to get deeper."

Everything went downhill after Flaherty's departure.

Oh, that bullpen

A trio of relievers — Wentz, right-hander Alex Lange and right-hander Will Vest — surrendered six runs.

Lange had the worst performance.

"They pounded out 18 hits, and half of them were against our bullpen in the seventh inning or later," Hinch said. "They put together a lot of good at-bats against Lange and took what they could."

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He allowed five hits and two walks, giving up four runs, in the eighth inning. He also had a wild pitch. Vest stranded the bases loaded by retiring back-to-back batters — Jeremy Peña and Yordan Alvarez — to end the eighth.

The eighth began with Alvarez's double off Lange.

The Astros took a 9-0 lead with an RBI single from Jake Meyers against Vest in the top of the ninth inning.

Contact Evan Petzold at epetzold@freepress.com or follow him @EvanPetzold.

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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Tigers muster just 2 hits off Justin Verlander in 9-3 loss