Justin Verlander threw 45 pitches in a batting cage on Thursday as he continues to prepare for the season.
The right-hander was supposed to make a spring start against the Philadelphia Phillies, but rain got in the way.
Verlander wants to pitch like he did back in 2012, but he's not there yet.
"The adjustments I'm making come all the way back to last year," Verlander said. "I threw like this for a year, so it's not so easy. My body wants to fall back into that naturally, because it's a whole year's worth of muscle memory that I'm fighting right now."
A core muscle injury that required surgery likely hampered his delivery during parts of the 2013 campaign.
"What we're thinking is, the adjustments I'm making, the way I was throwing last year, might have had something to do with an injury being there without me knowing," Verlander said, "and that might have been why I had to change my mechanics a little bit. …
"We think it was a very slow kind of injury, and that's why there was never a pop or anything. I was losing strength through my core, and that was what I think -- what we think -- was my body trying to adjust to that and being able to pitch through it."