DETROIT — Justin Verlander isn’t sure what the future holds — except that it doesn’t hold a start for him Sunday when his Detroit Tigers play in Cleveland.
Verlander was placed on the disabled list Wednesday for the first time in his career and left-hander Kyle Lobstein was brought up from Triple-A Toledo to replace him.
“Hopefully it will be just the one start,” manager Brad Ausmus said.
Verlander was originally supposed to start Wednesday’s game against Minnesota but a sore right triceps near his shoulder meant manager Brad Ausmus had to hand the ball off to right-hander Anibal Sanchez instead.
Sanchez was sharp in cold weather, pitching three-hit shutout ball for 6 ? innings of Detroit’s 11-0 victory over Minnesota.
Verlander has been bothered the sore shoulder since March 22 and was on track to start Sunday until the 39th and 40th pitches of a bullpen session last Sunday became painful. That prompted Detroit to scrub a planned outing Tuesday against Tigers’ minor leaguers at their spring training base in Lakeland, Fla.
Instead, Verlander did some long-tossing, after which the club brought him Detroit to supervise his his workouts.
“It’s just good to be back with the team,” Verlander said. “I’m feeling better, but obviously it’s day-to-day. I wanted to start Sunday but I needed to pitch (against hitters) Tuesday in order to do that. I couldn’t.
“Some days I feel really good. Some days it’s a little cranky. If this was September, I might try to pitch through some stuff. But it’s too early in the season to do things like that.”
Lobstein gets the call because he’s left-handed and Cleveland has a lineup that is mostly left-handed.
“But it’s primarily because of what he did for us last year,” said Ausmus, noting Lobstein performed well as a fill-in when right-hander Anibal Sanchez was hurt.
Verlander’s long-toss session Tuesday went well but he was not throwing Wednesday as a precaution. When his next throwing session and the target date for another bullpen session are up to trainer Kevin Rand, the right-hander said.
“He’ll have to do some kind of a simulated game before he can start again for us,” Ausmus said. “He’ll have to face some hitters and feel good the next day.
“But it’s certainly not like he’s starting from Ground Zero.”
Ideally, Verlander could work a simulated game at some point this weekend.
“After Sunday, we can kind of slot him in when we want,” Ausmus said.
Detroit is not scheduled to play Thursday so it can manipulate its rotation from that point.