Latest news with #JustinVerlander
Yahoo
16 hours ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
Giants Announce Unfortunate Justin Verlander News After Loss to Royals
The San Francisco Giants fell to the Kansas City Royals on Wednesday afternoon. Now 29-21 on the season, San Francisco is 1.5 games back of the first place Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League West. One of the more disappointing developments for the Giants this season has been Justin Verlander's performance. The three-time Cy Young Award winner signed a one-year, $15 million deal with San Francisco this offseason, but is 0-3 with a 4.33 ERA through his first 10 starts. Advertisement Now 42 years old, Verlander is MLB's active leader in strikeouts. On Wednesday, the Giants announced some unfortunate news on the 2011 AL MVP. San Francisco Giants pitcher Justin Verlander (35)© Bob Kupbens-Imagn Images Going just four innings in his last outing, which came against the Athletics on Sunday, Verlander struggled with his command. The nine-time All-Star walked five batters in his four innings of work. It turns out Verlander was dealing with pec discomfort in his last outing. The Giants announced via manager Bob Melvin that he will be making a trip to the injured list. "Justin Verlander will go on IL with the pec discomfort that bothered him in last start," Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area posted after Melvin spoke with reporters. "He felt okay playing catch, but wasn't quite ready to start Saturday. Giants are confident he'll be 100 percent after missing two starts. They're TBD for that rotation spot." While Verlander has struggled this season, a trip to the IL is still unfortunate news for a Giants team hoping to get him on track. In the middle of a competitive division race, San Francisco could certainly use a stretch from Verlander similar to what he produced in 2023. Advertisement Related: Pirates Predicted to Make Trade After Paul Skenes News Related: Phillies Send 4-Word Message After Retirement Announcement
Washington Post
3 days ago
- General
- Washington Post
Houston Astros look vulnerable in the AL West. Is anyone ready to dethrone them?
Slowly but surely, the stars of Houston's 2017 World Series-winning team have scattered about in the years since. George Springer is in Toronto now, Alex Bregman in Boston and Carlos Correa in Minnesota. Justin Verlander pitches for San Francisco. Jose Altuve and Lance McCullers Jr. are still with the Astros, but it feels like it's only a matter of time before Houston's dominance of the AL West comes to an end.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
5/12 Gamethread: Giants vs. Diamondbacks
The San Francisco Giants return to Oracle Park tonight to begin a three-game series against the Arizona Diamondbacks. Taking the mound for the Giants will be right-hander Justin Verlander, who enters tonight's game with a 4.50 ERA, 4.45 FIP, with 35 strikeouts to 15 walks in 42 innings over eight starts. His last start was in the Giants' 14-5 extra innings comeback win against the Chicago Cubs last Tuesday, in which he allowed three runs on five hits with three strikeouts and two walks in five innings. Advertisement He'll be facing off against Diamondbacks right-hander Merrill Kelly, who enters tonight's game with a 4.09 ERA, 4.27 FIP, with 33 strikeouts to 12 walks in 44 innings pitched over eight starts. His last start was in the Diamondbacks' 7-1 loss to the New York Mets on Wednesday, in which he allowed three runs on six hits with six strikeouts in six and a third innings. Lineups Giants Mike Yastrzemski (L) — RF Matt Chapman (R) — 3B Heliot Ramos (R) — LF Jung Hoo Lee (L) — CF Wilmer Flores (R) — 1B Willy Adames (R) — SS Patrick Bailey (S) — C Luis Matos (R) — DH Christian Koss (R) — 2B RHP. Justin Verlander Diamondbacks Corbin Carroll (L) — RF Ketel Marte (S) — 2B Pavin Smith (L) — DH Josh Naylor (L) — 1B Eugenio Suárez (R) — 3B Gabriel Moreno (R) — C Lourdes Gurriel Jr. (R) — LF Alek Thomas (L) — CF Geraldo Perdomo (S) — SS RHP. Merrill Kelly Game #42 Who: San Francisco Giants (24-17) vs. Arizona Diamondbacks (21-20) Where: Oracle Park, San Francisco, California When: 6:45 p.m. PT Regional broadcast: NBC Sports Bay Area Advertisement National broadcast: Fox Sports 1 Radio: KNBR 680 AM/104.5 FM, KSFN 1510 AM More from
New York Times
29-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Why Justin Verlander respects Tarik Skubal's dominance: ‘His last start was kind of eye-opening'
DETROIT — Over the weekend, Justin Verlander caught wind of Tarik Skubal's masterclass shutout. He checked the box score, saw the nine innings, the 13 strikeouts, the remarkable pitch count of 94. He wanted to see some of the outing for himself. So he called up the highlights. 'Really, his last start was kind of eye-opening,' Verlander said Wednesday in Detroit. Advertisement This time last year, Verlander admitted he had not watched Skubal closely enough to offer any honest evaluation. But the Tigers current ace caught the attention of the franchise's former top starter after his dominance rolled on through the summer. Skubal won the Cy Young Award. He became the first American League starter to win the pitching Triple Crown in a full season since Verlander in 2011. When the Tigers played the Giants in two exhibition games before the season in San Francisco, Verlander saw Skubal standing in the outfield. He ventured over to introduce himself. 'I've become a fan of his,' Verlander said. 'I wanted to go say hi and congratulate him on a great start to his career.' What was that like for Skubal? 'You're a little starstruck, honestly,' Skubal said before the finale of a three-game series against the Giants. 'What he means to this organization and what he's accomplished in his career, he's a Hall of Famer and he's been doing it for a long time. When you're in my shoes, you strive to be who he is. I think that's pretty cool.' Before he was among baseball's elite starters, Skubal was an avid fan of the game. He knows its history, understands the standard for greatness. One day at his locker last season, he pulled up Verlander's baseball-reference page on his phone, scrolled through the years and marveled at the longevity and year-by-year excellence. Strange, then, to realize Verlander is watching him similar to the way he's watched Verlander for so many seasons. 'How many years has he played?' Skubal said. 'Eighteen, 20 years? I've had 20 years of it. I'm 28. He got to watch one day of mine. I've got to watch 18 years of his. Comparison, we can say Tigers ace then, Tigers ace now. I don't think I've accomplished anything that he has. That's what gives you motivation to put your head down and go to work. It's cool, though, that he says those things about me.' Skubal has years to go before even sniffing Verlander's career achievements. But he's quickly entering similar territory in terms of being a fan favorite and must-see event any time he starts. Fans chanted his name during the ninth inning of his shutout. 'It reminds me, in my time, of going into Comerica and getting a young Justin Verlander, who was trying to literally embarrass you every time up,' former big-leaguer Mark DeRosa said on MLB Network. Advertisement Verlander is glad to see other young pitchers emerging. Paul Skenes is on his way. Gerrit Cole is an established star. But as Verlander, Max Scherzer and Clayton Kershaw near the ends of their careers, how many pitchers will break through as true household names? 'Since me, Max, Kershaw, I don't know if anybody else has done that,' Verlander said. 'Chris Sale, maybe?' Part of the issue, in Verlander's estimation, is the obvious safeguards on starting pitching. Skubal has already endured Tommy John surgery and a flexor tendon repair. Even Verlander had Tommy John surgery in 2020. Baseball's injury epidemic is part of the equation. But the days of Verlander's youth, playing for Jim Leyland, trudging deep into games and sometimes even getting banged around while doing it, are in the past. Verlander has thrown 26 complete games in his career. Skubal has one. 'You have to do some really cool s— as a starter,' Verlander said. 'In today's game, you're not really afforded that opportunity very often. Most guys, they're getting pulled at the fifth or sixth inning, not going deep into games and not really doing anything that makes headlines. Your team wins. You did an OK job. But you're not getting shown on ESPN and all the national news outlets to make a name for yourself, because you're not really doing anything.' In baseball, the competition starts with the man on the mound. The game is played, first and foremost, in the strike zone. But, if you don't count Shohei Ohtani, there is not a single starting pitcher among MLB's best-selling jerseys. There are only three — Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Clayton Kershaw and Skenes — inside the top 20. In free agency, starting pitchers are still a valued commodity. Verlander is making $15 million at age 42, coming off a season where injuries limited him to only 90 ⅓ innings. But the extinction of the workhorse starter is a frequent topic in the game, and one Verlander is particularly passionate about. Advertisement In a way, then, there's validation in seeing another young Tigers starter pitch well enough, perhaps, to carry on a legacy. 'I do appreciate seeing him go deeper in games and wanting to do that,' Verlander said. 'I think as a starting pitcher, for me, getting deep in games was something I always tried to do. It was less about I want to have zero runs given up and more about going deep in the game. You sacrifice sometimes. If your team scores six runs early in a game, I'm attacking. I'm sure he does the same.' Skubal threw 192 innings in the regular season last year. Verlander, meanwhile, has surpassed 200 innings 12 times in his career. Skubal has talked openly about wanting to be a pitcher who can push past that 200-inning threshold. 'The job is to pitch as deep into every start that I got,' Skubal said this spring, 'and make the job hard on A.J. (Hinch) to take me out of the game. Two hundred innings, it doesn't just happen. … But yeah, 200 innings, those are kind of the horses around the league that do that, and I want to be one of those guys.' The fact Skubal threw a complete game does not mean he's being used in the way Verlander once was. Skubal went nine innings because his pitch count was within reason. 'Look,' Hinch said, 'if guys want to enter the ninth inning with 85 pitches, I promise you I will leave guys in the game.' There are different circumstances, and this is a different era. But in terms of the excitement and electricity, the parallels between Verlander and Skubal are obvious. Tigers fans have started debating. Who is better? Skubal right now? Or Verlander at his peak? 'To me, if I'm the Tigers and I've got the best pitcher in baseball, I want that mother—— out there as long as possible,' Verlander said. 'Ride that horse. Hell yeah. That's the way I felt about it when I was pitching. They're like, 'You're our guy, we want you every fifth day.' They would skip the fifth starter. We have an extra off days, and it's like, 'Hey, how you feeling?' … I feel good. It was fine. It was great. It was awesome. And I loved it.'
Fox News
28-05-2025
- Business
- Fox News
Tarik Skubal wants to be an inning-eating workhorse, even if MLB has changed
Tarik Skubal enjoyed his first taste of throwing a complete game as a professional and the Detroit Tigers ace is hoping to be a rare starting pitcher who is regularly on the mound late in games. In this era, teams usually depend on relievers to pitch at least a few innings and the reigning AL Cy Young and league Triple Crown winner would love to buck the trend for manager A.J. Hinch and the AL-leading Tigers. "The game's changed a little bit because these guys that come in are the best they've ever been, but my goal is to make it as difficult as I can on A.J. to take me out of a game," Skubal said Wednesday before Detroit wrapped up a series at home against San Francisco. "I want him thinking a lot about it. I don't want it to be an easy decision. "That's kind of that's what starting pitching is — you take the ball and you eat innings. There's probably been a little bit of less value in that in today's game as it was five, 10 years ago." Justin Verlander laments that fact. "Most guys are getting pulled in the fifth or sixth inning," he said. Verlander, a three-time AL Cy Young Award in his first season with the Giants, understands clubs try to limit innings starters pitch in part to avoid injuries. The 42-year-old right-hander, though, is grateful Jim Leyland was his manager early in his career with the Tigers and allowed him to have 120-pitch outings and 200-inning seasons. "Even at that time, that was a little old school," Verlander said. "Had he not been my manager, I might not have had the opportunity to show what I can do. I think what separated me from a lot of guys was my ability to throw that many pitches and get stronger as game went on, and do it every five days." When Skubal makes his next start on Saturday at Kansas City, the hard-throwing lefty wants Hinch to see plenty of reasons to keep him in the game longer than usual. "I want to be out there for the sixth, seventh and eighth inning," he said. "There's going to be five-inning outings. Those are grinder games. I'm not too proud of those ones. I'm proud of ones I'm in the seventh, eighth and handing the ball off to the back end of our guys." [Related: Last Night in Baseball: Tarik Skubal goes Maddux, historically so] In Skubal's last start, he gave up two hits and matched a career high with 13 strikeouts in a 94-pitch performance that included just 22 balls and no walks. It was just the fifth individual shutout this season in the majors, and a complete-game shutout thrown in under 100 pitches is nicknamed a "Maddux," in honor of Greg Maddux, a leader in efficiency in an era of inflated pitch counts. That kind of efficiency is also what allowed Skubal to throw a record 102.6 mph, per Statcast's measurement, on his final pitch of the game. Which was also the fastest recorded velocity of any pitch 75+ pitches into a start. Skubal has yet to surpass 96 pitches in a start in 2025, and exceeded the 100-pitch mark just four times in 31 starts a year ago, while averaging over six innings per start – Skubal made it to the seventh inning throwing between 74 and 91 pitches on nine occasions in 2024. He's averaging nearly 6.1 innings per start in 2025, with the same level of pitch efficiency. If he or any other Detroit starter is as efficient as Skubal was on Sunday, then Hinch plans to keep them in for the final inning. "If guys want to enter the ninth inning with 85 pitches, I promise you I will leave guys in," Hinch said. Hinch said it's not an indictment on starters when they don't last deep in games, adding it's not a "healthy badge of honor," to just leave pitchers on the mound because they're having a good day. Simply put, he said the stuff a fresh reliever has to throw at teams is going to be better than one of the last pitches from any starter. "As starters fatigue, is their 120th pitch better than Will Vest's first pitch? Or, Tommy Kahnle's first pitch? Or, Brant Hurter's first pitch?" Hinch asked. "The answer is no." Want great stories delivered right to your inbox? Create or log in to your FOX Sports account, and follow leagues, teams and players to receive a personalized newsletter daily!
