At 42, Justin Verlander is the Giants’ hottest pitcher, and he’s eager to keep going

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PHOENIX – It’s a shame Justin Verlander won’t pitch for the Giants in their upcoming series in Los Angeles. You always want your best pitcher on the mound when facing your stiffest rival.

And, indeed, Verlander is the Giants’ best pitcher. At least their hottest.

The 42-year-old displayed his best stuff Wednesday afternoon at Chase Field when he spun seven scoreless innings in the Giants’ 5-1, 11-inning win over Arizona, which snapped their four-game losing skid and left them with a .500 record.

This up-and-largely-down 2025 season comes down to 10 more games for the Giants and two more starts for Verlander, who’s pitching his best baseball of the year, a far cry from how he was performing earlier, a nice momentum boost for his 2026 season, wherever that might take him.

“In any walk of life, you put in that much work into something and that much care and effort, it’s nice to be able to reap some reward,” Verlander said. “For me, it was one of the more frustrating, if not the most frustrating, first four months of a season in my career. But just never give up, just keep trying to find it and scratch and claw.”

Verlander hinted in spring training, after joining the Giants on a one-year, $15 million contract, that he’d like to pitch until he’s 45, giving him a nice chance to reach 300 wins. But struggles in the spring and early summer made that plan seem iffy. He told The Standard in early August his hope still was to pitch in 2026, and he was more definitive when asked about his future after Wednesday’s start.

“Yes, I would hope that somebody would offer me a contract now,” said Verlander, somewhat humble in his response, knowing full well teams will be making offers based on how he’s finishing the season. “I showed I could turn it around and still pitch at a high level.”

Verlander (3-10) has 265 career wins but easily could have topped 270 with better luck this season. He exited seven games with a lead but didn’t get a win. Wednesday, he surrendered three hits, struck out three and walked two. Thanks to improved mechanics that turned around his season, he has a 2.17 ERA in 11 starts since July 23. Prior to that, in 16 starts, his ERA was 4.99.

Could the rebound mean a possible return to San Francisco? Will he want to play on the East Coast, closer to home? Will he prefer a team that will score him plenty of runs to give him a better chance to climb the win column.

“It’s free agency. You never know what’s going to happen,” he said. “At this point last year, I would’ve never guessed I’d be here. So we’ll see what happens. I never put the cart before the horse.”

Verlander isn’t looking too far ahead with the Giants remaining mathematically alive in the playoff race – two games back of the Mets for the final wild-card berth – which is why he spoke to teammates after his previous start, stressing the importance of team goals over individual numbers.

“We’re at that course in the season where I don’t care if I win or lose,” he said. “I want to give us the best chance to win and give us the best chance to sneak into the playoffs.”

The Giants played solid defense behind Verlander, especially center fielder Drew Gilbert, a major-leaguer for just six weeks who made a game-saving catch in right-center to rob Jake McCarthy in the fifth inning. Verlander raised both arms in appreciation and waited near first base for Gilbert to come off the field so he could commend the rookie on his catch.

“I mean, he’s 42 years old and giving everything he’s got,” Gilbert said. “It’s pretty easy to throw your body on the line. You want to make a play for a guy like that. So, yeah, it’s pretty cool. It’s what you want, man. When he does something like that (the gesture after the inning), it makes you want to make another play for him.”

“I’ve got to be honest,” Verlander said, “when I first looked up and saw him tracking the ball and saw where he was playing, I didn’t think he was going to catch it. He made up some ground and made a great play.”

While Verlander threw seven scoreless innings, Diamondbacks starter Brandon Pfaadt went nine scoreless, and the lone hit he permitted was Gilbert’s sixth-inning single. The Giants collected their other four hits in the 11th, a rally that began when Bryce Eldridge reached base for the first time in the majors, on a walk.

Jerar Encarnación singled home the first run, and Christian Koss doubled in two more. Grant McCray hit a sacrifice fly, and Rafael Devers added an RBI single.

In recent weeks, Verlander passed Walter Johnson and Gaylord Perry to move into eighth place on the all-time strikeout list, and with Wednesday’s outing, he became the only pitcher who’s at least 42, other than Roger Clemens, to give up one or zero runs in four straight starts.

Verlander is aligned to make his next start in the homestand opener against St. Louis on Monday, and his finale would be against the Rockies in the final weekend. How the Giants fare in L.A. the next four games will go a long way to determine the importance of his last starts of 2025.

“We’ve been a streaky team all year,” he said. “When we find a way to be on a hot streak, we can roll through anybody and win a lot of games very quickly. So I sure would like for that to happen right now and see what shakes out.”