DETROIT – One of the challenges of injured pitchers rehabbing through simulated games is getting the intensity level closer to actual games, even compared to a Minor League rehab start. On Wednesday, Justin Verlander found a willing competitor in fellow injury rehabber Kerry Carpenter.
Verlander threw 66 pitches by unofficial count over four innings in his latest simulated game. More than a third of those pitches went to Carpenter, who faced live pitching for the first time since spraining his right shoulder crashing into the side wall at Kauffman Stadium on May 9.
“Justin had a good day,” manager A.J. Hinch said. “We tried to fatigue him a little bit. He was stronger this time than last time. Stuff ticked up a little bit.”
Verlander and Carpenter faced each other in each of the four innings. Each at-bat seemed to ramp up the competition level.
Carpenter was a quick strikeout victim in the first inning, then hit a line drive to left field in the second inning that would’ve likely been an out. Once Carpenter stepped to the plate for the third time, he had his timing down for Verlander’s pitches and went into battle mode, fouling off five balls during a nine-pitch at-bat before Verlander fanned him on a changeup.
Carpenter and Verlander closed out the outing with an 11-pitch battle that ran Verlander’s pitch count up to the target level. Carpenter fouled off seven more pitches, including Verlander’s last five. By the end, Verlander was grunting loudly enough to be heard from the press box in an empty stadium. His next-to-last pitch was his hardest of the outing, at 95.3 mph. Carpenter fouled that off, and the one after that.
Carpenter “was really taking full swings,” Hinch said, “and that was really good to see. He’s been doing some cage work, and there’s just no way to simulate the velocity and the reaction. It’s pretty simple in a cage. It’s not as simple in live BP.”
Verlander seemed to feed off of that.
“His overall demeanor, I think, is getting more competitive and more in line with what it is when he’s training and not rehabbing,” Hinch said.
Both players are trending toward rehab assignments, particularly now that Verlander has stretched out his pitch count.
“We need to get him toward competition,” Hinch said. “That’s the goal.”
Gleyber Torres, out since May 4 with a left oblique strain, also stepped into the box Wednesday for an at-bat against Verlander, though he was not swinging. He was simply getting accustomed to live pitching again.
“I want to hit right now, but I can’t,” said Torres, who’s running and fielding at full speed. “I hit in the cage the last two days. It feels good.”
Torres will take batting practice on Thursday before the Tigers decide if he’s ready for a rehab assignment this weekend.
“I want to make sure that my timing is there,” Torres said. “Last week, I didn’t feel like I’d have to go to the Minor Leagues [for a rehab assignment] because I didn’t miss many games. But now, I think I have around three weeks [out], so I want to make sure I try to get my timing.”