I'm not a Tigers fan (A's all the way, darn you guys for taking us out of the playoffs two years ago), but I'm a huge stats guy and avid fantasy baseball fan. I was looking at Justin Verlander's numbers and came across some really extreme splits that might explain why he's been struggling:

2008:

Bases empty: .218 BAA
With Runners on: .314 BAA

Bottomline: He's going to be fine, better than fine.

Now compare that split to the previous two years:

2007:

Bases empty: .235 BAA

With Runners on: .230 BAA

2006:

Bases empty: .274 BAA

With Runners on: .254 BAA

While you can't say that a pitcher should have the same BAA with the bases empty and with runners on, over 100 points difference is pretty extreme. And while some pitchers are terrible from the stretch (one prime example is Dave Bush, who despite great WHIPs every year can't seem to put up a decent ERA with a career .252 BAA with the bases empty and .290 BAA with runners on), others turn it up with runners on (One extreme example with some luck involved is Zambrano, who has a .280 BAA with nobody on, but .188 with runners on this year).

We won't try to figure out whether this is a mechanical issue with pitching from the stretch or some mental issue, but just from looking at Verlander's past two seasons, he doesn't seem to fit the bill of someone who struggles this badly from the stretch. His LOB% this year is a terrible/unlucky 63.5% compared to 74.9% and 78.3%. All of these scream that there will soon be some regression to the mean.

While there are some bad signs such as his low K/9 (5.28 compared to 8.17 last year), the bottom line is that Verlander will be alright. The 100 point difference in BAA with runners on won't stay that way all season long, and his K/9 will improve, although maybe not to last year's levels.

Here's another interesting split if  you look at his era by pitch count:

Pitches 1-15: 14.73 ERA
Pitches 16-30: 3.27
Pitches 31-45: 3.86
Pitches 46-60: 4.97
Pitches 61-75: 2.70
Pitches 76-90: 5.73
Pitches 91-105: 1.35
Pitches 106-120: 8.31

I know it's not a huge sample size, but he's definitely getting rocked at the beginning of games, and then being left in too long (couple starts where he was lights out... then once he got into the 6th or 7th, he gave up like 4 or 5 runs, and suddenly a great start gets ruined). One such example was Apr 27 start against the Angels:

Through 5 innings, his numbers looked like this:

5 IP, 4 H, 2 ER, 1 BB, 3 K

Not bad... then the 6th inning came around:

0.2 IP, 3 H, 4 ER, 3 BB

So whatever it is that's plaguing him, whether it's some mental block at the beginning of games and with runners on, I think Verlander will be Verlander again soon, and the Tigers will be the team everyone thought they would be at the beginning of this year (except when you guys play the A's of course).