Justin Verlander got one out in the sixth inning Saturday afternoon, and then A.J. Hinch walked out of the Detroit dugout with Verlander’s daughter Genevieve next to him. Verlander said he was totally blindsided. He also said he was sobbing. Twenty-one seasons ended with a father walking off a mound holding his kid’s hand.
He Finished Where He Started
This part matters. Verlander closed his career with the Detroit Tigers, the team that drafted him second overall in 2004, not with Houston or New York or San Francisco. He went back to Comerica Park to finish it, faced the Pittsburgh Pirates on September 26, and gave Detroit five and a third innings on 91 pitches, allowing two runs on a pair of solo homers with six strikeouts.
The Tigers won it 4-3 on a walk-off two-run homer from rookie Eduardo Valencia, which is about as tidy an ending as a 43-year-old could ask for. It was the 557th regular season start of his career.
The Weekend Was a Family Production
Kate Upton was on the field for the pregame ceremony with the couple’s young son Bellamy while Verlander was honored. Genevieve had already thrown out a ceremonial first pitch on Friday night, with her dad crouched behind the plate to catch it.
Then came the part nobody told Verlander about. Hinch designed the sixth-inning removal specifically so his pitcher would get a moment he could not see coming, and it worked exactly as intended. Verlander has spent two decades being the most competitive man in every building he walked into. Saturday he could not get through it without breaking down.
The Numbers Are Cooperstown Numbers
Verlander retires at 266-159 with a 3.33 ERA and 3,561 strikeouts, which puts him eighth on the all-time list. He won three Cy Young Awards in 2011, 2019 and 2022, an American League MVP in 2011, and made 10 All-Star teams. He threw three no-hitters. He won two World Series titles with Houston in 2017 and 2022.
Add 37 postseason starts and 226 postseason innings to that, and there is no argument to have. He goes in on the first ballot, and anyone who votes otherwise should be asked to explain themselves in public.
What Ends With Him
Verlander is the last real link to a version of starting pitching that the sport has quietly stopped producing. He debuted in 2005, back when a workhorse ace was expected to carry 220 innings and finish what he started, and he was still taking the ball at 43 in a league that now treats a 100-pitch outing as a heavy lift.
He also did the thing almost nobody does, which is stay excellent into his late 30s and beyond. The 2019 and 2022 Cy Youngs came at ages 36 and 39, the second one after Tommy John surgery wiped out most of two seasons. Plenty of pitchers hang on. Verlander kept winning awards.
Pittsburgh manager Don Kelly, who first saw Verlander pitch during his Double-A debut back in 2005, was in the other dugout Saturday. Twenty-one years between those two moments, and the guy on the mound was still the same guy. Baseball will not see that combination of durability and peak again anytime soon.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.