PHILADELPHIA — Justin Verlander clearly was frustrated as he stood at his locker addressing a group of reporters after the Giants’ 6-4 loss to the Phillies Tuesday night. He was taking deep breaths. He was pausing before answering questions. He was seeking ways to capsulize what had just happened.
“It’s tough … it’s tough,” he said.
Win No. 263 was 12 outs away, an eternity in the baseball world but close enough for Verlander to taste. The 42-year-old, decked out in a 42 jersey on Jackie Robinson Day, was targeting his first win as a Giant, which would have gotten him a notch closer to the magical 300 mark that only 24 pitchers in history have reached.
More than any individual pursuit, the future Hall of Famer was trying to pitch the streaking Giants to their 13th win in 17 games. He was succeeding through five innings as the Giants led 3-2. At that point, manager Bob Melvin had the choice of sticking with Verlander, who was at 84 pitches, or begin a series of bullpen moves with his highest-leverage relievers.
Verlander stayed. The decision backfired.
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“If I’m at 84 through five, that should be my inning,” Verlander said of the sixth. “Yeah, obviously I wanted it bad.”
With one out, Kyle Schwarber and Nick Castellanos hit back-to-back singles, neither particularly hard. By then, reliever Randy Rodriguez was loosening up, but Verlander stayed. J.T. Realmuto hit a lazy fly ball down the left-field line, seemingly high enough for Heliot Ramos to chase down, with a 44-degree launch angle that guaranteed extreme loft. But Ramos didn’t make the catch, and the game was tied 3-3.
Verlander stayed, and Max Kepler hit a scorching liner, 102 mph off the bat — right at shortstop Willy Adames. Two outs. Again, Verlander stayed.
“The decision was after Kepler lined out,” Melvin said. “The ball that fell in left field, [Verlander] made a good pitch. It just ended up falling. It was after the Kepler at-bat that I had a decision to make, and I gave him one more guy.”
The one more guy was Alex Bohm, who hit Verlander’s 104th and final pitch into left field for a run-scoring single to break the tie. Verlander finally was pulled and charged with the loss.
He’s 0-1 with a 6.75 ERA in four starts (the Giants are 2-2 in those games), yielding 14 earned runs in 18 ⅔ innings. A deeper dive suggests he has come across some bad luck based on his high BABIP (batting average on balls in play) — which is 77 points higher than his career average — and relatively low exit velocity for many of the 24 hits he surrendered.
The hit that stung the most Tuesday was the Realmuto fly that Ramos didn’t catch. Ramos took responsibility and told Verlander, “My bad.”
“Just being tested here. Not sure why I’m being tested so hard,” Verlander said, “but I’ll keep working hard, keep trying to make my pitches. I do everything that I can do. Just trying to get guys not to hit the ball hard. [Ramos] said something to me, and it’s all good, man. Like, we’re all trying the best we can here.
“Still feel like I’m heading in the right direction. I’m trying not to overthink it the best I can, which is difficult.”
Ramos said the plan was to play Realmuto in the gap in left-center, which made for a long run toward the line. The wind was strong and unpredictable, blowing one way one inning and the other the next.
“I don’t want my teammates to give up runs because of me,” Ramos said. “It was a guessing game with the wind. But I have to be there. I tried my best. I don’t know if I should have run faster. I mean, I was hauling ass.”
The Phillies scored twice more in the seventh on Bryce Harper’s homer off Hayden Birdsong. The Giants rallied in the eighth when Ramos, Adames, and Jung Hoo Lee hit three consecutive singles to make it 6-4, but Verlander and the Giants wound up with the loss.
The prestigious 300-win club is something Verlander is on record saying he’d love to join. If he does at some point, he might be the final member. Randy Johnson was the last to reach the milestone back in 2009 as a Giant. It’s tough to earn wins these days with quick hooks, limited pitch counts, and teams pulling starters before they face the lineup a third time around.
Verlander is an old-school pitcher who used to throw far more than 200 innings a season. He won an MVP award and three Cy Young Awards. But that was when he was 20-something and 30-something. Now he’s 40-something. He’s not throwing seven, eight, or nine innings anymore, but his repertoire borders on elite — he touched 95.8 mph with his fastball Tuesday — and he still values getting a W attached to his name in the box score.
Melvin said 300 wasn’t at the front of his mind when deciding Verlander’s fate, but there’s no denying he and management are fully loyal to the free agent pitcher they signed in the offseason to a one-year, $15 million contract.
“Every game is its own personality,” Melvin said. “I mean, look, he’s had a lot of success, and that may have played into it some, but I wanted to give him a chance to get that last out.”