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Justin Verlander: Detroit Tigers fans were on my mind for 2017 trade

Verlander will always be synonymous with Detroit and it's the bond shared with the fans there which he credits as the toughest part of waiving his no-trade clause to accept the deal.
Credit: Bob Levey, Getty Images
Justin Verlander #35 of the Houston Astros looks on from the dugout as the Houston Astros play the Detroit Tigers at Minute Maid Park on July 13, 2018 in Houston, Texas.

HOUSTON — It’s going to be different, Justin Verlander knows. But how different, he won’t know until he takes the mound at Minute Maid Park for the 406th start of his major league career on Sunday afternoon.

There, he will stare back at batters wearing one of the only two uniforms he had ever worn until last season, when the Detroit Tigers dramatically changed course by trading their homegrown franchise player.

“I think once I’m out there, it’s going to be business as usual,” he said on Friday afternoon. “But right now, I can tell I feel a little differently about it. I know these guys so well — a lot of them — and I still text with a bunch of the guys so that’s not something I normally do with teams I’m going against.

"But we’ll see. I’ll probably have a little more nerves Sunday morning than maybe for a typical regular season start, but like I said, once you step on the mound, it’s game on.”

That likely isn’t good news for the offense-challenged Tigers or their fans, many of whom have yet to come to grips with the sight of Verlander pitching for the Houston.

A lot has changed since that last-minute trade which sent Verlander packing on the final day of August last season. He went to the Astros, dominated, won a World Series championship and then hopped on a private jet to Italy, where he married supermodel Kate Upton.

“It’s crazy how quick things can happen,” he said. “It seems like it was forever ago almost. So much has happened since the trade and everything’s happened so quickly. I’m a married man now with a World Series ring and a wedding ring.”

More changes will be coming: Upton announced on her Instagram account on Saturday morning that she is pregnant.

But the more things change, the more they stay the same: Verlander is doing with the Astros what he did for the majority of his decade-plus with the Tigers: Posting AL Cy Young Award-quality numbers. This season, he is 9-4 with a 2.05 ERA and 0.828 WHIP in 20 starts and was named to his seventh All-Star team. (His start Sunday makes him ineligible to play in Tuesday's game.)

For as much publicity as the Astros’ analytical impact received from his instant success last season, Verlander had long since returned to form. He made only one significant pitch-selection change — throwing mostly four-seam fastballs as opposed to two-seam. He said he thinks the visibility of pitching in the postseason was the biggest reason for that publicity.

“It was much easier to notice when I got here because we were pitching for a championship team going to the playoffs,” he said. “There was a few little things that I changed but I know it got a lot of publicity because of the analytics here and that’s what made me return to Cy Young form, but I was already there. I had figured it out in Detroit.”

Verlander will always be synonymous with Detroit and it’s the bond shared with the fans there which he credits as the toughest part of waiving his no-trade clause to accept the deal.

The Houston Astros pitcher Justin Verlander talks about the Detroit Tigers rebuild process and what he misses most about Detroit. Anthony Fenech, Detroit Free Press

“Really, I was concerned with how the fans would react,” he said. “I think as far as a pure baseball decision, I think it was a pretty clear cut, ‘Yes,’ if you were just thinking baseball.

“But when you’re thinking what I kind of started in Detroit and the relationship I had created with the fans there, all that stuff matters to me and you’ve seen horror stories with how some athletes that were prominent in cities bowed out in not the right fashion and it didn’t come across well to their fans and I didn’t want to do that to the Detroit fans. I wanted to leave on a good note and not leave a sour taste in their mouth and I think everybody understood that the organization was going in a different direction and I desperately wanted to win a World Series and the opportunity wasn’t going to be in Detroit at that juncture.”

Verlander said he still keeps up with how the Tigers are doing. On Thursday night, he shared a dinner with former teammates.

“I still pay attention,” he said. “I didn’t unfollow them on social media, so I get updates. I mean, look, Detroit is always going to have a place in my heart and I’m always rooting for that organization, so I definitely keep following them to see what’s going on.”

Contact Anthony Fenech: afenech@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @anthonyfenech.

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