SAN FRANCISCO -- As Justin Verlander walked off the mound at Oracle Park on Sunday afternoon, with Eminem’s “‘Till I Collapse” blaring over the speakers, the crowd gave the 42-year-old pitcher a standing ovation.
He’s not quite sure how to feel about it.
“The old school is like, ‘It was only five innings,’” Verlander said. “I’m not sure I’d go home and say that was a great start.”
It took a season-high 121 pitches, but Verlander got his third win in a Giants uniform. He collected 10 strikeouts over five scoreless innings as the Giants closed out their six-game homestand with a 13-2 rout of the Orioles.
“I think they did a great job battling off some good pitches and fouling off a lot of stuff,” Verlander said. “I can only control what I can control. Clearly was doing a decent job not allowing a lot of hard contact; I just wish I’d gotten some quicker outs. But I thought it was really cool of the fans. It did feel good.”
Verlander worked around traffic on the basepaths in every inning before striking out the side in the top of the fourth. Even with 94 pitches thrown through the first four frames, both Verlander and manager Bob Melvin knew there was no question he’d be back out there for the fifth. Melvin didn’t even approach him in the dugout.
“Obviously, we want to try to give him the win at that point in time,” said Melvin, whose club has won seven of its past eight games. “I don’t think the pitch count really mattered to him. I’m glad he got the out when he needed to. … He had to grind through it probably more so, in this year, than any other start. You look at the line -- three hits, no runs, 10 strikeouts.
“Pretty good.”
It was the 73rd time Verlander reached double digits for strikeouts in a game, his first since Oct. 4, 2022. At 42 years, 192 days, he’s the oldest pitcher to fan 10 or more in a game since Randy Johnson did it on Aug. 22, 2008 at 44 years, 347 days old.
The only other pitchers at Verlander’s age or older to accomplish the feat in the last 125 years are a who’s who of all-timers: Nolan Ryan, Roger Clemens and Gaylord Perry. Verlander is now five strikeouts away from passing Perry for eighth on the all-time strikeout list.
Verlander went all-in on his breaking balls and offspeed pitches, drawing 16 of his 23 swings and misses from his curveball, changeup, slider and sweeper.
“It was a little bit of old bull, young bull today,” Orioles interim manager Tony Mansolino said. “We had a bunch of young bulls out there who were trying to get what they wanted instead of taking what he was going to give them, which was the offspeed.”
But as the O’s bats kept fouling off and his pitch count crept up early on, Verlander started throwing his fastball more to try and get quicker outs.
That was on full display in the fifth inning, when Verlander got leadoff batter Daniel Johnson to ground out, but once again found himself in a jam after walking Jackson Holliday and allowing a single by Jeremiah Jackson. Even as his workload surged past his previous season-high of 104 pitches (on April 15 at Philadelphia), Verlander stayed on the mound and buckled down.
Verlander leaned on his offspeed stuff, keeping Gunnar Henderson off balance with a mix of his slider, changeup and curveball before freezing him with a fastball at the knees for a called strike three and the second out. He then started Ryan Mountcastle off with a fastball that was fouled off for strike one, before getting a called strike on the sweeper and getting the O’s first baseman to chase a changeup inside to end the inning.
“Definitely could tell there was a little bit of fatigue setting in,” he said. “Overall, everything felt fine physically. … You just kind of keep making pitches, trust your instincts.”
Verlander went off his reads, determining which pitches the Orioles’ lineup was seeing well and which ones they weren’t. By the end of that fifth inning, he was just trying to throw everything in the zone.
“You just turn the page after each single pitch, absorb as much information as you can from it, and move onto the next pitch,” Verlander continued. “And rinse and repeat.”