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Justin Verlander came to San Francisco to win baseball games, and he has won exactly zero. Which is a stunning and bizarre development for the future Hall of Famer who remains stuck on 262 and missed another opportunity for his first win as a Giant on Tuesday night.
Not that it was all his fault.
The Giants’ offense has serious issues — even with newcomer Rafael Devers — and whenever Verlander takes the mound, serious becomes dire. Whether the Giants are cursed during Verlander starts or tighten up because there’s added pressure to win on the 42-year-old’s watch or simply suffer the every-fifth-day blues, it’s a real thing.
The offense supported Verlander with all of two runs Tuesday, courtesy of Christian Koss’ home run, and the starter surrendered three runs over five innings. Ballgame. The Giants lost 4-2 to the lowly Marlins, the 12th consecutive winless start for Verlander, the longest drought to open a season by any Giants starter in history.
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“It’s not on them,” Verlander said of the Giants’ hitters. “It’s on me. I have to put us in good position. You can’t expect to give me wins when you go out there every time and give up three-plus runs and don’t go deep into the game. That’s where I need to do better, for sure. I plan on it.”
A quick fun fact…
It was Verlander’s first start since his wife, Kate Upton, gave birth to the couple’s second child, a boy named Bellamy Brooks. Verlander called the experience “incredible. Just an amazing time. Everyone’s home, happy, healthy. All I can ask for.”
Now back to the slumping offense …
Entering the day, only one major-league starter had received worse run support than Verlander, and that was Colorado’s Chase Dollander. In Verlander’s first 11 starts covering 56 ⅔ innings, the Giants scored just 22 runs. Now it’s 24 runs over 61 ⅔ innings. Either way, it’s meager.
Even though Verlander takes full blame, it’s not all on him. The Giants are 4-8 in his 12 starts, though in several of his outings, he pitched winnable ball. Whether it was the offense or bullpen or other factors, Verlander not only is winless but luckless. Now he awaits his next start, lucky No. 13.
“We’ve been feeling it for a while now,” Koss said. “The thought of trying to push for (a Verlander win) might play into it, but I think we go out there with the thought of winning every game. It’s one of those weird baseball things that’s playing its course. Eventually he’s going to get a win.”
Through four innings, the Giants had two hits: a groundball single up the middle by Rafael Devers and another grounder off pitcher Cal Quantrill’s foot by Jung Hoo Lee. The Giants didn’t score until Koss’ homer in the fifth, cutting Miami’s lead to 3-2.
That was Verlander’s final inning, and if the Giants had gone ahead in the bottom half, he would have been in line for the win. As it turned out, the fifth-inning rally ended abruptly — Devers was thrown out at the plate trying to score from first on Heliot Ramos’ double down the line in left. Third-base coach Matt Williams waved home Devers, though the DH is playing through a groin issue.
Plus, team RBI leader Wilmer Flores was on deck.
“There’s two outs,” Williams said. “We’ve got to try to score when we can. I made the decision. If it’s the wrong decision, it’s the wrong decision. But I made it, and it’s over with.”
Williams said he was comfortable sending Devers, especially after Devers scored from first Sunday on another Ramos double. As for whether he was considering the team’s urgency to get Verlander a win, Williams said, “That doesn’t go through your mind. It’s the situation. You’ve got to make decisions sometimes. Sometimes they work out, sometimes they don’t.”
The best the Giants could hope for in some cases is the other team messing up a play. On this particular one, however, left fielder Kyle Stowers quickly tracked down the ball in the corner and threw to cutoff man Otto López, whose one-hop relay was in plenty of time for catcher Liam Hicks to apply the tag.
The Giants collected just five hits, though Casey Schmitt continued to hit the ball hard. He singled in front of Koss’ homer and is 10-for-17 over his last five games and hitting .400 with four homers in 13 games since Matt Chapman was shelved with inflammation in his right hand.
Schmitt has been playing third base in Chapman’s absence, and the Giants are considering moving him to second once Chapman returns, which is expected at some point before the All-Star break. When the Giants go to Chicago this weekend, Chapman will continue to rehab at the team’s training facility in Arizona. Meantime, Schmitt will be taking pregame grounders at second in anticipation of another position change.
Until then, with Tyler Fitzgerald optioned to Triple-A Sacramento to rediscover his confidence and groove, Koss and Brett Wisely will be sharing second.
“When I come back, our lineup’s going to be really deep,” Chapman said. “It’s going to be a lot tougher to navigate. The way Casey’s swinging the bat, you put me and Casey in the lineup and Devers and everybody, now you’ve got a deep lineup one through nine, and it’s going to be a lot of fun.”
Sean Hjelle followed Verlander and pitched the sixth inning, his first appearance since his wife Caroline’s allegation of abuse on a TikTok post. The Giants said they’ve been in contact with Major League Baseball, which is investigating, and are keeping Hjelle on the roster in the meantime.