Justin Verlander threw the last pitch of his career on September 26 at Comerica Park, the 595th appearance of a 21-year run that began in the same building in 2005. He went 5 1/3 innings against the Pirates, allowed two runs on solo home runs, struck out six and threw 91 pitches. Then his daughter Genevieve walked out to the mound with A.J. Hinch to take the ball.
“Was totally blindsided,” Verlander said afterward. “It hit me like a ton of bricks. That was amazing. I was sobbing.”
Jason Benetti had the call and understood the assignment. “Of all the pitches he threw from 60 feet, 6 inches, the speed at which she ran out to the mound might be the most important thing we’ve seen today,” Benetti said. He later added that he did not think you would “see anything more emotional than that at a sporting event, in a family sense, in quite some time.”
Detroit trailed 3-1 entering the ninth and won 4-3 on a walk-off two-run homer by rookie Eduardo Valencia. Benetti’s call on it: “High fly ball. Left field. Did he? DID HE? YES HE DID!!! Hollywood, Line 1! The Tigers do it for JV!”
The Numbers Are Nowhere Near Borderline
Verlander retires at 266-159 with a 3.33 ERA and 3,560 strikeouts, eighth on the all-time list. His 266 wins rank 37th. He won Cy Young Awards in 2011, 2019 and 2022, the AL MVP in 2011 and Rookie of the Year in 2006, making him the second player ever after Don Newcombe to collect all three of those trophies.
He threw three no-hitters: 2007 against Milwaukee, then 2011 and 2019 against Toronto. He won World Series titles with Houston in 2017 and 2022 and took ALCS MVP honors in 2017. At age 39 in 2022 he led the majors with a 1.75 ERA across 175 innings, which is simply not something 39-year-old pitchers do.
He ranks 18th all-time among starting pitchers in JAWS, the Hall of Fame metric that blends career value with peak value. Every pitcher above him on that list is already in Cooperstown. He is a first-ballot Hall of Famer, and the only real suspense is how close the vote comes to unanimous.
Where He Ranks
Verlander is the best starting pitcher of his generation, and it is not much of a debate. What separates him is that he stacked an enormous workload on top of an elite peak and then dragged that peak into his 40s. His best 11-year stretch produced a 2.95 ERA over 2,098 innings with 2,233 strikeouts, a volume of high-quality work that exceeds a lot of full Hall of Fame careers.
Put him in the top 15 starting pitchers in baseball history and you will get no argument from anybody reading the leaderboards. Top 10 is a fair fight worth having. Ranking him lower requires holding his longevity against him, which is a strange way to evaluate a pitcher.
The Ending Was the Good Part
Verlander announced in July that 2026 would be his last season, saying he had realized “that time has come” and that he would “finish where it all started” with Detroit. The Tigers drafted him second overall in 2004 out of Old Dominion. He spent 2025 with the Giants, came back to Detroit, got hurt in March and did not pitch again until the organization carved out this farewell start.
That outing was no ceremonial single inning. He gave the Tigers five and a third and left with the game still winnable, and they won it. Twenty-one years after his debut, a 43-year-old pitched well enough to matter, then walked off the field with his kid. The Cooperstown vote is a formality. What happened Saturday was the part worth keeping.
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.