"You hear about a guy. See him once in a while from afar, but only occasionally up close. You pore through his statistics. And you have an idea.

Or so you think. Because it's hard to imagine, regardless of what you'd seen, read or heard about the Detroit Tigers' Justin Verlander, you could have never known he possessed what he put on display tonight in Comerica Park.

To comprehend what drove Verlander tonight, to have any idea what allowed him to throw, in eight innings, the 120 pitches it took to beat the Yankees and CC Sabathia, 5-4, and move the Tigers to within one win of a triumph in this American League Division Series, you'd probably have to cut him open. Because to go along with some of the most powerful and filthy pitches in baseball, it's pretty apparent Verlander's also got heart."