I didn’t listen to today’s game in its entirety as I stopped listening after Verlander left the game after pitching four innings. He was roughed up again today not coming in with his finest stuff by far. He gave up 5 hits and 3 runs, one of which was a home run to LaRoche, two walks and four strikeouts.

Justin was pretty tough on himself on this outing as well:

It’s definitely not the outcome I was looking for,” he said. “I’m kind of in the middle ground between where I want to be and where I was last time [out] and the time before. So I felt this time I regressed a little bit, and I need to [move] forward next time.”

Jim Leyland does not appear to be worried though when it comes to Verlander’s readiness for the regular season:

“He worked a lot on his body over the winter to get stronger, but he didn’t do a lot of throwing,” Leyland said. “He hasn’t always been real sharp this spring, and he didn’t have his command or control today. He’s a good pitcher, though, and he’ll be ready to go when the regular season starts in two weeks.

Looking on the bright side for Justin, his ERA did drop from 9.00 to 8.31 after todays game.

On the offensive side the Tigers weren’t at their greatest either leaving a total of 11 men on base. Brandon Inge came a bit out of his shell hitting for two doubles on the day which was very nice to see. Gary Sheffield also continued to be himself working Pittsburgh for two walks. The Tigers did match the Pirates with 8 hits total while working 6 walks, they just couldn’t get the hits to bring folks home.

Tigers ended up losing 3-1.