Pitcher's warmup act became a showstopper

He got the feeling when he was in the bullpen, warming up for his start last night against the Red Sox.

Tigers righthander Justin Verlander had an inkling he was in for a good night. When he feels a groove in the bullpen, it doesn't always translate into a successful outing, but something about this one told him he was going to be in command.

His instincts were right. The 24-year-old threw a season-high 120 pitches, 79 for strikes, on the way to a 7-2 victory over the Red Sox. In 7 2/3 innings, he gave up six hits, two runs (both earned), struck out seven, and walked none. He improved his record to 4-1 with a 2.76 ERA.

"It was the best pregame bullpen I've had," said Verlander. "I really felt I had good control of all three pitches. It was going well for me.

"Walking in, I remember thinking, 'All right, let's just carry that over to the game and I'll be all right.' Sometimes you have a great bullpen, but it doesn't mean you're going to have a great game."

Because Fenway's confines -- and the potent Sox lineup -- can be intimidating to a pitcher, Verlander said he worked hard to ignore what he was facing.

"I was trying to take the ballpark, the players, everything out of it and really just pitch my game," he said. "Not think about who was hitting or who was next or who was in the hole and really just make the pitches to every batter one pitch at a time.

"I just really wanted to pick up my team and do what I could to give us a W. I knew our bullpen had been taxed the last couple of days, and especially after that seventh, I wanted the ball, to go out there and give them a chance to rest."

The victory ended Detroit's losing streak at two games, and manager Jim Leyland was plenty pleased with Verlander's performance.

"We got everything and more," said Leyland. "We needed something like that. That's pretty good stuff you saw tonight."

Verlander had a 7-1 lead when he went to the mound for the eighth, and Leyland said he wasn't thinking about pulling him at that point.

"I thought he was OK," said Leyland. "I felt like he was still in command, and I thought he was throwing easy. It was really a no-brainer, but I wasn't going to let him go past 120 pitches."

The 120th was a doozy, as Kevin Youkilis launched it out of the park to center field.

"He hit it into the night is what he did," said Leyland. "It was a bomb but it only counted once."

That ended Verlander's night.

"It's not the way I would've liked to have gone out," he said. "It's just one of those things where you've got to be kidding me."

The only other run he gave up was in the first inning, with Youkilis again scoring (on a J.D. Drew single), but he got out of the inning with no further damage.

"That was big," said Leyland. "They can put them up quick here. This is a real good team, obviously, so any time you can hold them to one run in an inning when you could be in trouble, that's huge here."

Leyland said Verlander, making his eighth start of the season, had his best outing.

"He had everything going," the manager said. "He reached back a little bit, but it was pretty easy. Sometimes when he reaches back to get that little extra, he labors a little bit more. Tonight it came out pretty easy.

"He hit 99 a couple of times and 100 once. I don't know if the gun's exactly accurate -- it might have been juiced up a little -- but he was throwing good."