Justin Verlander: Tigers' 20-Game Winner Talks Cy Young Award

Since Justin Verlander won his 20^th game on August 27, becoming the first pitcher since Curt Schilling to hit that number in 2002 for Arizona. The question has been whether that cemented the pitcher's bid for the Cy Young Award.

“You don’t really think about that stuff,” he said after his 20^th win in August put him in a class with baseball greats that include Schilling and Roger Clemens, who got 20 in August of 1997 with the Toronto Blue Jays.

“Every year I expect to have a good year, I don’t know where it’s going it end up. For me, it’s easy to block all that other stuff out when you just go one at a time and don’t worry about anything else except going out there and winning when your number is called.”

Verlander should get the Cy Young this year. His record as of August is 20-5. In the last five years, only one of the AL’s Cy Young winners has had more wins total. Cliff Lee had a 22-3 record when he won it with as a member of the Cleveland Indians in 2008.

“I don’t set goals for myself, per se,” he said, in reference to wins he expects to accrue during a season. “I just go out there and see what I can do for this exact reason: If I were to set a goal in spring training, say, ‘I want to win 20 games,’ here I am at 20 and I’d have five or six more starts.”

Of course, wins mean less in the recent era with pitch counts and other limits that has fewer pitchers playing a complete game.

Last year Felix Hernandez of the Seattle Mariners won the Cy Young with a record of 13-12. Johan Santana in 2006 (19-6), C.C. Sabathia in 2007 (19-7) and Zach Greinke in 2009 (16-8) all did not hit 20 wins.

Verlander currently owns a 2.38 earned runs average. Currently, only Jared Weaver of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim has a better ERA (2.28).

Statistically, however, the number that stands out is his innings pitched.

He has pitched 215.2 innings this year. That’s 10 more than Sabathia and 14 more than Weaver and James Shields of the Tampa Bay Rays (201.1 and 201, respectively).

Basically, that means he’s pitched a game and an inning more than Sabathia and two solid outings (seven innings apiece) more than Weaver and Shields.

He is the team MVP. He is the reason Detroit has separated themselves from the White Sox and Indians in the Central.

Everyone around the league knows the Tigers have a stalwart who will go out and pitch inning after inning of great baseball, even with a higher pitch count in later innings.

“We got his pitch count up and that just tells you a little about him, he’s a warrior,” said Twins manager Ron Gardenhire, who managed against Verlander during his 20^th win.

“His team picked him up and got him some runs there late and it’s amazing he even went back out there with 115 pitches or whatever.”

Verlander said he was irked that he let the Twins tie the game up 4-4 in the sixth inning with his pitch count above 100 pitches, but was determined to go back out in the seventh.

“Yeah, I was upset,” he said. “Obviously, I’m thinking, ‘Hopefully we score a couple more,’ which we did. That’s a sign of a great team, the Twins battle back and here we come rolling right back.

“I don’t like to give up the ball to our bullpen that early in a game.”

A sub-2.50 ERA pitcher with 20 wins in August and a team that will be playing in October, Justin Verlander, barring an epic collapse, deserves the AL Cy Young.

Tom Schreier is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report. Unless otherwise noted, all quotes were obtained firsthand or from official interview materials from the Minnesota Twins.

Follow him @tschreier3.

Special thanks to Andrew Halverson for getting me the Gardenhire quotes.