I like five straight wins to start a homestand. Avila was hitting .080 vs lefties before he hit that homer off Gio, now hitting .083. lol
Verlander still can't locate. I think people are overreacting about velocity and not considering his control enough. He has now walked almost the same amount of batters he did all of last year, in 100 less innings. Still....some good signs today.
I wonder if the crummy location is a product of the lacking velocity though. In the past,
he could rear back and blown a 98 mph fastball by someone. Now at 93-94 he can't just blow it by someone so he needs to be fine. And that is causing him to nibble on the edges.To be honest I haven't watched him live a great deal but the times I have he seems to be barely missing the zone with the non-strikes, and when he does put it in the zone it gets hammered.

Today he threw two 97mph fastballs in the first inning. His velocity is down on average but that is really a side-effect of his control. It's not just his fastball, he has one of the best curve balls in the game and is having trouble getting that backdoor pitch anywhere near the strike zone. He is trying to locate the fastball more and more because he simply hasn't been able to nibble the corners like he has in the past. Today was a great example, he walked 5 and I think he threw fastballs over 95 in four of those at bats with three balls.
He also is using the change-up a lot more, and that's because he can't locate his fastball. His was throwing sliders at 88 and 89 today, and his percentage of sliders has gone up significantly. If you go back to 2008 you'll see his fastball velocity was also down, it was 93.6 that year compared to 95+ in most of his seasons. Why? Because he had no control, he has to slow it down some to get it over.
He's also been really unlucky, his BABIP is high and he's not getting the black on the strike zone like he has in past years. So that lends itself to confidence, and he's been #####ing a lot about the umps which I think is a really bad sign as far as confidence. To me it doesn't seem like an injury adn he's showed his past few outings that he can dial up a 98mph fastball and throw a nasty curve at times, he just isn't doing it consistently. We keep hearing about him catching all these mechanical things, which I think is probably true. So basically he's lost some confidence, has had some bad luck and he's got mechanical issues.
In the end I think he will return to elite status at some point, but I'm losing faith that that will be anytime soon. The talent, arm, and old Justin are still in there but he's extremely inconsistent. It's like watching 25-year-old Verlander all over again, so it's frustrating for pretty much everyone at this point.