Does Justin Verlander Deserve to Win the AL MVP?

Dominating the Mound

Detroit Tigers starting pitcher Justin Verlander has been the most dominant pitcher in baseball this year. At 24-5 he leads all of baseball in wins, innings pitched (251.0), strikeouts (250), and WHIP (0.92) in addition to being first in the American League with a 2.40 ERA. Verlander also has 4 complete games, of which he has one no-hitter and three other times he pitched eight innings or more and gave up two or less hits during those outings. His fastball can reach triple digits even late into games, his changeup can leave batters looking foolish with an early swing, and his curve breaks so hard that you would think it was because just for an instance earth’s gravity changed. Perhaps just as important, his Tigers won the AL Central by double digit games. He is having one of the best seasons a pitcher has had in about a decade. The AL Cy Young is his, but what about the AL MVP?

Aybar Bunts in Attempt to End No-Hitter

Verlander’s No No-Hitter

It was a pitching duel between Justin Verlander of the Detroit Tigers and the Los Angeles Angels with Jared Weaver. In the bottom of the third inning the Tigers’ Magglio Ordoñez hit a ball off of Weaver that was borderline fair/foul as it sailed into the outfield. Ordoñez stood in the batter’s box watching the ball to see on which side of the foul pole it would curve. With the ball eventually sailing to the right of the pole for a home run, Weaver took this as Ordoñez admiring the hit and the two began to share some words. In the bottom of the seventh, Carlos Guillen decided to get back at Weaver for calling out the teammate of the former so when Guillen hit a home run he stood there to admire it and then skipped off to first base. Understandably, this ticked Weaver off. As a result, the next hitter, Alex Avila, got a fastball high and inside that caused Avila to duck. Weaver was ejected and the game continued.