Detroit Tigers pitcher Justin Verlander has been placed on the 15-day injured list with left hip inflammation.

Keider Montero will be called up and is expected to start Sunday, April 5, against the St. Louis Cardinals at Comerica Park.

It will be retroactive to April 1, so the earliest Verlander will be eligible to return is April 16.

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Verlander has already pitched once this season, although his first start was forgettable. He gave up five runs off six hits in 3⅔ innings against the Arizona Diamondbacks. He struggled with his command, throwing 80 pitches (53 for strikes) while recording one strikeout with two walks. Since then, he has worked on his mechanics.

“Head position,” he said Saturday. “Trying to be a little more deceptive and stay in line a little bit longer.”

The Diamondbacks hit Verlander hard, making contact with seven balls that featured an exit velocity over 100 mph.

“It wasn’t good enough,” Verlander said. “I hope it’s not like last year … months trying to find it. Hopefully I find it a little quicker than that. But yeah, you know, I think talking to analysts and those guys and the stuff is actually pretty good, so not too far away. I hope.”

Verlander, 43, signed a one-year deal with the Tigers this offseason, returning to the franchise he spent his first 13 seasons with. He made 29 starts in 2025 for the San Francisco Giants.

And he was expected to start Sunday night against the Cardinals in Comerica Park in front of a national audience on “Sunday Night Baseball” on Peacock, NBC’s streaming service.

Montero was optioned to Triple-A by the Tigers on March 4, with the franchise planning on him as their No. 6 starter in the rotation.

“We’ve got to protect our rotation,” Hinch said when Montero was sent to Toledo. “For him, defining the role where we felt like he can help us the most was going to be, at some point, in our rotation. Whether that’s getting called up as a sixth starter, or god forbid anything happens, he’s equipped to handle that, and the only way to do that is get him going and building him as a starter.”

In 2025, Montero registered a 4.37 ERA with 31 walks and 72 strikeouts across 90⅔ innings in 20 games (12 starts) for the Tigers. He also logged a 5.91 ERA across 42⅔ innings in 10 games (eight starts) for Triple-A Toledo.

Montero has made one start for Toledo, throwing four scoreless innings against the Lehigh Valley IronPigs on March 29. He struck out three with one walk.

Contact Jeff Seidel: jseidel@freepress.com. Follow him on X @seideljeff

MILWAUKEE – A Milwaukee woman, charged after a 4-year-old girl was killed last year, was sentenced to probation on Thursday.

Woman sentenced

In court:

Derreanna Little, 26, was originally charged with felony child neglect. Court records show she ultimately pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of obstructing an officer and one misdemeanor count of disorderly conduct in March.

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Milwaukee County Judge David Borowski initially sentenced Little to serve time in the Milwaukee County Community Reintegration Center. However, the judge stayed that sentence and instead placed Little on probation.

Little is also ordered to complete 200 hours of community service as a condition of her probation. One hundred of those hours are to be performed at a Milwaukee high school to speak about the danger of guns, according to court records.

Anthony Brookshire, Little’s codefendant in the case, has already been sentenced to 15 years in prison and seven years of extended supervision. In December 2025, he pleaded guilty to two of the four charges filed against him, including second-degree reckless homicide, and the other charges were dismissed as part of a plea deal.

4-year-old killed

The backstory:

It happened near 39th and Sheridan on the night of Feb. 17, 2025. A criminal complaint said Little called 911, but when the dispatcher asked what the emergency, she didn’t respond and could be heard screaming. The call disconnected moments later.

On a second call to 911, court filings said Little was heard saying “stay with me, stay with me” and “it’s OK, you hear me, stay woke.” Shen then yelled, “Anthony, go get my baby.” There was no direct communication with the dispatcher.

Milwaukee police were dispatched to investigate the 911 call. When officers spoke to Little, the complaint said she told them her 4-year-old niece had been shot. The child was later identified as Jainadia Little. 

Prosecutors said Little refused to disclose where the shooting happened. She claimed the 4-year-old and a 1-year-old were in a bedroom when she heard a gun go off. She told police she went to the bedroom, and the 1-year-old was holding a gun.

After the shooting, court filings indicated that Brookshire and Little took the wounded 4-year-old girl to a hospital. The girl died there during the early morning on Feb. 18, 2025.

Evidence secured

Dig deeper:

Milwaukee police detectives scoured the shooting scene and collected evidence. The complaint said they found blood spatter near a hole in a deflated air mattress in a bedroom, and a single bullet casing was found on the air mattress. There were also numerous pieces of mail, addressed to Brookshire, in the bedroom.

Detectives found an empty drum magazine and two empty extended magazines inside a backpack in the home’s living room, court filings said. 

In a vehicle that was parked outside, prosecutors said police found a loaded semi-automatic handgun “in plain view on the floor.” They also found another semi-automatic gun with a loaded, extended magazine.

Detectives pulled three fingerprints from the handgun that was “in plain view.” Court filings said all three prints matched Brookshire.

Investigators conducted three separate interviews with Brookshire and two with Little. The complaint said, during those interviews, the accounts of what happened from both Brookshire and Little changed multiple times.