WEST SACRAMENTO – Earlier in his career Justin Verlander was so dominant that he could blow teams away on days when he didn’t have his best stuff. Now at 42 years old and suffering through arguably the worst stretch of his storied career, Verlander has to work a bit harder and craftier than he once did.
That’s been the case all season since the three-time Cy Young Award winner inked a one-year deal, $15 million contract with the Giants in the offseason, and was the case Friday in Sacramento.
Coming off one of his most encouraging starts of the season – six innings, one run against the Chicago White Sox – Verlander’s momentum came to an abrupt halt on Friday night in the Giants’ 11-2 loss to the Athletics at Sutter Health Park, where the A’s tagged him for six runs and seven hits in just three innings, his second-shortest start of the 2025 MLB season.
“I felt like I was pretty easy to hit tonight,” said Verlander, who characterized his outing as ‘frankly embarrassing.’
“I need to be better than that. I thought I found something between starts that was going to help and send me in the right direction. It didn’t, so back to the drawing board.”
That’s been the sense around Verlander’s starts all season. For every step of improvement that he seems to make, there are two or three other mistake pitches that get pounded.
“His stuff looked pretty good. I think just every mistake he’s making he’s paying for it,” Giants manager Bob Melvin said. “He’s throwing some balls down the middle, and (opponents) are getting some good swings. And other pitches, he’s making good pitches on and he’s not really getting away with much.”
Asked if Verlander might trying to be too fine with his pitches because his mistakes are getting hammered so well, Melvin didn’t think that is the case.
“He’s had a history of being able to recover but today just couldn’t do it,” said Melvin, referring to Verlander giving up all six of his runs in the first two innings. “I think he’s just making mistakes. I don’t think he’s trying to be too fine.”
Verlander bears a resume that will surely get him into the Hall of Fame but the pitcher he was during his dominant days is not the same pitcher he is now.
Rather than getting by on sheer athletic talent, Verlander is having to put in more work between starts and plans to continue down that path until he gets that elusive first win with the Orange and Black.
“I’m just not deceptive enough,” he said. “My stuff is OK. I know that I can still be successful with the given stuff that I have at this level. I’m just not deceptive enough right now, and I need to figure that out. I need to figure out how to blend stuff better. Mechanically I’m not delivering the pitch the way that I’m capable (of) to deceive the hitter. I’ve been working hard to figure that out since the start of the season.”
Part of that means getting comfortable with the pitches that are working and not stressing over the ones that aren’t.
“You have to adjust to what you have at that given time,” Verlander said. “The converse of looking at it that objectively is that I do think my stuff can be consistently great enough to be a great pitcher in this game, given the current landscape. But I need to make some adjustments. I’m trying everything I know how to do.”
As tough as the season has been – Verlander dropped to 0-5 with a 4.84 ERA following the loss to the A’s on the 4th of July – the nine-time All-Star is confident that he still has time to turn things around for himself and the Giants.
“I’ve had a lot of crappy starts in my career,” Verlander acknowledged. “You work on something, and the only person that can really tell you if it’s going to be beneficial or not is the hitter in that situation where they’re reacting to the pitches in a real time situation. The reactions I saw tonight wasn’t good enough so that was not the answer.”
During his 20-year career in the majors, one of the most important lessons that Verlander has learned is to not let things linger, good or bad.
“I’m already on to the next thing,” Verlander said. “Threw some balls against the wall and felt some different mechanics that I’ve been thinking about. I’m optimistic that that’s going to be the next thing that works. This isn’t the first time. I’ve had two or three instances in my career where I’ve kind of had to reinvent the wheel and everything that I’ve known to try to fix something doesn’t work. I feel like I’m kind of there where it’s like, ‘Alright it’s time to throw (stuff) against the wall and see what works.”
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