Justin Verlander roughed up in Tigers' 9-6 loss to Diamondbacks

Chris McCosky, The Detroit News on Mar 31, 2026

Published in Baseball

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The Tigers just about took future Hall-of-Famer Justin Verlander off the hook Monday night.

Things didn’t exactly go according to script in Verlander’s first start as a Tiger since Aug. 30, 2017. The Arizona Diamondbacks ruined that with five runs in the first two innings, highlighted by Corbin Carroll’s RBI triple and 403-foot, three-run homer.

Verlander lasted just 3.2 innings and the Tigers were in an 8-0 hole after five innings. They had struck out 10 times in those five innings against right-hander Michael Soroka, who in his Arizona debut recorded an immaculate inning in the fifth, striking out Javier Báez, Kerry Carpenter and Gleyber Torres on nine pitches.

Out of nowhere, though, the Tigers sent 11 batters to the plate and scored six runs in the top of the seventh.

But the fun ended there and the Diamondbacks celebrated their first win of the season, 9-6, before a sellout crowd (48,350) at Chase Field in their home opener.

To say that six-run outburst came out of nowhere, the Tigers had just four hits and 11 strikeouts in the first six innings and hadn’t put a runner on base since the third inning when Riley Greene and Spencer Torkelson struck out stranding runners at second and third.

Reliever Joe Ross walked rookie Kevin McGonigle to start the seventh. Dillon Dingler doubled to score McGonigle and Baez bounced an RBI single to right field to score Dingler. After Carpenter struck out for the third time (he has 10 in four games), Torres kept the inning alive with a single and Keith, hitting .462 on the young season, hit his second double of the game, driving in two more runs.

Keith scored on a single by Greene.

Arizona manager Torey Lovullo, amidst a chorus of boos, replaced Ross with right-hander Ryan Thompson. Torkelson greeted him with an RBI double. McGonigle and Dingler also drew walks to load the bases.

Again Lovullo made a pitching change, this time calling on Juan Morillo who got Parker Meadows to ground out and end the inning.

It was a nice response but it was too little too late, largely because the Diamondbacks had put three more runs on the board in an ugly fifth inning.

Lefty Enmanuel De Jesus gave up three straight hits, including an RBI double to Alek Thomas, and walked in a run. The third run of the inning came on a play where the Tigers thought they’d got an inning-ending force out at second.

Replays showed that the runner, Jordan Lawler, beat Baez’s throw to second.

Tigers’ lefty Brant Hurter, who had gotten five straight outs, gave up a two-out solo homer to Ildemaro Vargas in the bottom of the seventh to make it three-run game.

Verlander struggles seemed to start with his inability to get a feel for his curveball, a massively important pitch for him. He tried to adjust by throwing more sliders and changeups, even mixing in some sweepers, but the D-backs continued to put barrels on baseballs.

Through the first two innings, the Diamondbacks hit six balls with exit velocities of over 100 mph.

He ended up throwing 14 curveballs, five for strikes. His one strikeout came on one of the few well-executed curveballs, to Thomas in the third.

The Diamondbacks got their five runs off Verlander on six hits and two walks. Besides the one strikeout, he got just six misses on 39 swings. And the average exit velocity on balls in play was over 90 mph on all five of his pitches.

Right-hander Paul Sewald, who finished last season with the Tigers, got the final three outs for Arizona.

The Tigers, 2-2, will send Casey Mize to the mound in Game 2 of the series Tuesday.

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