Yesterday, former Tigers pitcher Jack Morris chimed in on why he thought Justin Verlander was struggling with a 1-5 record and 6.28 ERA, while striking out just 4.9 batters per nine innings.
Via Tom Gage in the Detroit News:
"His shoulder," Morris said before Sunday's 7-6 sweep-clinching victory by the Twins. "There's something wrong with his shoulder. I know because I've been there with that bursitis I had. dYou can see it in the way he's throwing. He's over-compensating for not being able to extend his arm."
As you might expect, Verlander disagreed with Morris's diagnosis, saying that his shoulder feels fine. And when you're talking about baseball injuries, you should probably be talking to Baseball Prospectus' Will Carroll, and in his "Under the Knife" ($$$) column today, he writes his support for Verlander.
I guess the mid-90's velocity and solid performance (albeit in a losing effort) against the Twins didn't convince [Morris]. I watched the tape of that game and Verlander's previous two starts, and compared them to a performance from last year (albeit only highlights). I don't see a significant difference.
All this talk might go away, of course, if Verlander started winning some games and - more importantly - his lineup began to score a decent amount of runs for him.