The legend of Justin Verlander was made in Detroit.
Drafted by the Tigers with the second overall pick in 2004, he was the 2006 MLB Rookie of the Year, 2011 MLB MVP and a Cy Young Award winner. Verlander was the ace of a pitching staff that helped the Tigers win four straight division titles, the AL Championship Series three years in a row and make it to the 2012 World Series. Alongside him was Max Scherzer, who won a Cy Young with Detroit in 2013 as an up-and-coming flamethrower.
Both Verlander and Scherzer left Detroit — Verlander via trade and Scherzer via free agency — but this week will see the return of both pitchers in back-to-back games. For Verlander, the game won’t just be a return to Detroit, but also his debut for the New York Mets — who gave him a two-year, $86.6 million contract this offseason but have been waiting for him to recover from a back injury.
“It’s funny how baseball works,” Verlander said Tuesday at Comerica Park, per the Associated Press (via ESPN). “Obviously, I wouldn’t like to start the year on the IL at all. But as baseball always tends to have some funny stories and connections, here I am, my first start as a Met in Detroit.”
The series-opening game was scheduled for Tuesday night but it was postponed due to rain. Game 1 will be made up as the first part of a doubleheader on Wednesday, and the series will wrap on Thursday. Verlander is scheduled to pitch the Thursday contest, while Scherzer is expected to pitch the second game of the doubleheader.
It will be a monumental stretch of games for both Mets and Tigers fans, but also for the respective pitchers. The Mets signed Scherzer to a three-year, $130 million contract in December 2021. Verlander coming to New York has reunited the one-two combo that was so deadly for the Tigers for years.
“It was one hell of a run,” Verlander said of their time in Detroit. “Just excited to be back with Max,” he continued. “We kind of went our separate ways and to come back here at this stage in our career has been such a blessing. We’ve had a lot of talks about pitching and baseball, and reconnecting, it’s been great.”
