Tigers" Verlander Sets Expectations Ever Higher Mike Cassese/Reuters Justin Verlander led the American League in victories (24), earned run average (2.40) and strikeouts (250) in 2012. Justin Verlander will be back on the mound at Comerica Park on Thursday, back on the perch from which he reigned in 2011. His Detroit Tigers host the Boston Red Sox in an afternoon opener with a prime-time aura. Prince Fielder takes aim for the downtown skyscrapers for the first time as a member of the Tigers. Bobby Valentine writes his first official lineup as manager of the Red Sox. And Verlander, the most important figure of all, gets back to work. More than anything else, perhaps, the sight of Verlander unleashing fury from his right arm will be the sign that baseball has returned. No one so thoroughly dominated the game last season. Verlander led the American League in victories (24), earned run average (2.40) and strikeouts (250). His celebrity earned him the cover of a video game, Major League Baseball 2K12, and his own breakfast cereal, Fastball Flakes. His pitching earned him the Cy Young and Most Valuable Player awards, and he still hopes to improve. "My goal is to be a better pitcher," Verlander said last week in a telephone interview. And it's very possible I could be a better pitcher and still not have numbers as good as last year. I'm just trying to pitch to the best of my ability, and the best way to one-up last year is to win the World Series. The Tigers came close last season, losing to Texas in a six-game A.L. Championship Series. Verlander earned their final victory, in Game 5, even though the last pitch he threw was a home run ball to Nelson Cruz. The scoreboard clocked it at 100 miles an hour. For Verlander, the homer finished his season at 2711/3 innings, postseason included. At the time, only one pitcher - Roy Halladay in 2010 - had thrown more total innings in the last 10 years. Chris Carpenter of the St. Louis Cardinals passed both pitchers in Game 7 of the World Series, ending with 2731/3 innings and a championship. But Carpenter is not pitching now. A nerve problem has caused weakness in his throwing shoulder, and there is no timetable for his return. Verlander, meanwhile, has been as reliable as any pitcher in the majors. He has made at least 30 starts in each of his six full seasons, and has thrown more innings since 2009 than everyone except Halladay and Felix Hernandez. "I think my mechanics are different," Verlander said, explaining his durability. Maybe not necessarily different, but something works. I guess I throw the ball with less stress on my joints. It's a combination of that and hard work, but everybody's going to say hard work. I actually think I was real lucky as a rookie. I could have been injured. My arm got so fatigued, and it was painful for me to throw. Thank God I didn't get hurt. Verlander was referring to 2006, when he won the A.L. rookie of the year award but tailed off in the second half and lost twice to St. Louis in the World Series. The Tigers have not been back since, but with Fielder replacing the injured Victor Martinez, this may be their best chance. Verlander was golfing in Orlando, Fla., when he learned that his team had signed Fielder, an idea he had suggested at a team function. "We had just gotten back from TigerFest, and I was joking with Dave Dombrowski," Verlander said, naming the team's president and general manager. "Like: "How about we go sign Prince? Ha, ha, ha. Obviously nobody had even thought about it - and then a week later, my phone starts blowing up. Verlander said he pushed back his throwing program by two weeks, but otherwise, his off-season program was unchanged from last year. He expects to continue evolving as a pitcher, a plan he enacted last season, when he tried to induce contact in early innings, reducing his pitch count and saving his best fastballs for later. According to FanGraphs, Verlander used his fastball only 46.9 percent of the time last year, the lowest rate of his career and down from 67.2 percent in 2009. Even so, he led the league in strikeouts both seasons. At 29, Verlander is the oldest of the Tigers" top four starters. It is hard to expect him to pitch better than he did last season, but the youth of Max Scherzer, Doug Fister and Rick Porcello suggests that all three could improve, setting up a rotation that may dominate a weak A.L. Central. "That's the thing you have to keep reminding people," Verlander said. Porcello's been up for three years, but he broke in when he was 20. If Doug can do half of what he did last year, that would be tremendous, and Max and Ricky are getting better every year. I'm excited to watch these guys grow. Fister, Scherzer and Porcello will have their turns. Opening day belongs to Verlander, who will try again to be a pitcher without peer.