ST. LOUIS -- Justin Verlander took another impressive step on his likely path to the Hall of Fame on Saturday night at Busch Stadium, recording his 3,535th career strikeout to pass Gaylord Perry and move into eighth place on the all-time list.
The milestone strikeout -- against Nolan Gorman for the second out of the sixth inning of San Francisco's 3-2 loss to the Cardinals -- was Verlander’s 119th in his first season as a Giant. And in passing Perry, he found himself just 39 behind the seventh-place hurler on the list, longtime Los Angeles Dodger and Hall of Famer Don Sutton.
Gorman’s third strikeout of the night came looking at a 94 mph four-seam fastball down in the zone. He also went down swinging in the first and fourth, José Fermin struck out swinging in the third, and Iván Herrera struck out looking in the sixth immediately before Gorman to -- very temporarily -- pull Verlander and Perry into a tie.
“It just keeps going. I mean, there aren’t that many left [ahead of him],” manager Bob Melvin said. “That’s pretty incredible. To be pitching this well, that late into your career, hat’s off to him.”
“Very excited,” said a clearly exasperated Verlander, frustrated by the whipsaw nature of the walk-off loss. “It’s wonderful. Yeah, it’s great. Very happy.”
That Verlander would record such a milestone at Busch Stadium came with its own special twist of irony. This ballpark is the only one at which Verlander has pitched in his storybook career without recording a victory, though Saturday’s appearance was only his second here in the regular season in the course of his 20-year career, the other coming more than a decade and a half ago for Detroit on June 16, 2009.
Verlander also memorably pitched in the first World Series of his career in his rookie year of 2006, losing the decisive fifth game in St. Louis. The only other current big league ballpark in which he’s yet to record a win is Milwaukee’s American Family Field, where he has never pitched.
The stretch continued in dramatic fashion -- though Verlander left in line for the win -- as the Cardinals plated three runs in the bottom of the ninth inning off Ryan Walker to walk it off.
“We felt like we had that game,” Melvin said. “Even though it’s 2-0, we were in pretty good shape. We score a couple runs, and things are looking our way.
“Unfortunately, when a closer has a bad day, you end up losing a game. And it happened pretty quickly.”
Gorman led off the ninth with a ground ball single that skipped just past Casey Schmitt at second base. Masyn Winn fought a ball off his fists for a bloop single to right, and then Walker compounded the situation by hitting Jimmy Crooks on a 1-2 pitch.
Thomas Saggese followed with a sharp single to center to draw the Cardinals within one, and Jordan Walker broke an 0-for-25 drought with a double off Matt Chapman’s glove at third to bring the game to a close after just 16 pitches in the ninth.
“Obviously the hit batter didn’t help,” Walker said. “It’s the nature of the ninth, but yeah, it felt pretty quick on this one. I felt like I didn’t throw a ton of pitches. They were just attacking early.”
“He’s my teammate, and you have to turn the page the next time he’s out there,” Verlander said. “I have the utmost faith in him. It’s just unfortunate. … It’s not like he’s out there trying to give up runs. I know that.”
The loss represented Walker’s first blown save since June 29, a stretch of 23 appearances. That game was also started by Verlander, as well as a 5-4 loss to the Angels in which Walker blew a save on April 20.
With Verlander stuck on just three wins this season despite a season ERA that dropped to 4.09, those three blown saves seem to carry extra significance. Still, the legendary righty was quick to point out what has largely been a period of success to the Giants, who snapped what had been MLB’s longest current winning streak at five games.
“We were down and out not long ago,” Verlander said. “Now there’s a hope. With hope comes some pressure, and we need to perform. Just keep doing what we’ve been doing. We don’t need to do anything extra.”
And Walker, despite his dismay, still had time to marvel at his teammate’s nigh-unmatchable feat.
“I was excited to get to 200 [strikeouts],” he said. “I can’t imagine 3,500. That’s insane.”
Make that 3,536 -- and counting -- to be precise.