There was a moment, however fleeting, that Justin Verlander wants to share with you.

It came after the top of the seventh inning on Monday night, after the 119th pitch of his outing, a 98 m.p.h. fastball, was caught in centerfield. It was in the back of his mind – it has been for quite some time now – and it came to the forefront as he walked off the mound to a standing ovation at Comerica Park.

It’s the narrative reporters write about and the feelings fans care about but something the Detroit Tigers’ veteran ace can’t think too much about – he has a job to do, after all.

But after a stellar seven-inning performance against the Royals, evasive as always about the trade rumors that continue to circle around his name and equally sensitive about the situation at hand, Verlander wants you to know that he heard that ovation. He felt it. And although he couldn’t acknowledge it – he’s simply too superstitious to tempt the baseball gods – he wondered the same thing you did.

He wondered if that was the final ovation he would get from the fans that watched a kid from Goochland, Va., grow into perhaps a future Hall of Fame pitcher right before their very eyes.

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“You never know what could happen,” he said. “So it’s back there and there is a moment walking off the mound where you just take a second to appreciate it. And I know I didn’t acknowledge it when I was walking off the mound, probably because we’re in the middle of a tie game and you don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Maybe, Verlander said, he wished he could have gone back and said, "Thank you."

But there was no finality with his performance against the Royals, which featured seven innings of his firmest fastballs of the season and the look of a pitcher who could confidently say, “Yes,” he had finally turned the corner on this inconsistent season. No, there was only an overriding feeling that the way Verlander pitched had to convince a contending team to take the safest of chances – however expensive it may be – in adding a front-line starting pitcher with plenty of big-game experience to their team.

As the days have flipped on the late July calendar, the likelihood of Verlander staying in the only uniform he’s ever worn past the July 31 deadline has remained unlikely. His contract – due roughly $70 million through 2019 – serves as the main obstacle. His performance before the All-Star break – not to those standards – hasn’t helped. But on Sunday afternoon, the Los Angeles Dodgers, a team long rumored to be interested in his services, lost their ace, Clayton Kershaw, for perhaps more than a month. On Monday night, the Chicago Cubs, another team monitoring the situation, sent a scout to see Verlander for the third time.

He knew this. And though he has strayed away from outright acknowledging such a thing, he knew there would be a strong contingent of scouts watching his every pitch Monday, the latest audition for a grizzled veteran who has proved himself for over a decade.

Against the Royals, Verlander allowed three runs on five hits. One scored on a wild pitch. Another on a sacrifice fly to centerfield and a third, on a hanging slider that resulted in a solo home run. He struck out nine batters, walked two and registered a season-high 95-plus m.p.h. on his fastball.

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His first answer to a question about the start potentially being his last at Comerica Park was a quick “I’m not thinking about it,” in a way that was obvious he had thought about it.

Verlander is 34 years old. With the Tigers entering a rebuilding phase, he could not be faulted for thinking his best opportunity to pitch in big games going forward is with another team. But with that age comes a decade’s worth of mutual affection with a fan base that has – and always will – claim him as their own. He wants to win in Detroit. But those winning ways have all but ended.

And over the course of nearly 10 minutes of questioning – mostly about the trade deadline and his thoughts and how difficult it is these days to keep those thoughts out of his mind – the ever-experienced Verlander slowly but surely showed his human side.

He went from, “It’s out of my control,” to “There’s a long way to go,” to “I’m not really paying attention to it,” to a quick mention of a moment.

“I guess there might be a fleeting moment where you might say this might be the last time,” he said. “But it’s very fleeting. Then it’s, ‘All right, well, I appreciate it, but we gotta score a run here. We gotta win a game.’ ”

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Asked if he indeed had that fleeting moment, he said he did.

“Who knows,” he said. “Maybe there’s a lot more of those to come. Maybe there’s not. All I know is that I heard it, I felt it, I appreciated it and I love these fans and I’m glad that they acknowledged that.”

It was as if, for the first time, Verlander realized a good-bye could really be near. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn’t. But it if was his final start of a fantastic career with the Tigers, despite all of the stoicism he showed and the moment he didn’t want to get caught up in, Verlander wanted to let you know he was thinking about the very thing he’s trying his hardest not to.

Contact Anthony Fenech: afenech@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @anthonyfenech.