Justin Verlander Gets His 262nd Career Win, Astros Top Guardians 4-3

Justin Verlander’s 2024 season isn’t exactly one to remember between the injuries, a couple of IL stints, and general ineffectiveness. Velocity, down. Strikeouts, down. ERA, up. FIP, up. Plenty of Verlander’s numbers have trended in the wrong direction. Time is undefeated and Verlander could be at the end of the road. Or not, as I’ve learned to not underestimate him. But the results this season don’t exactly paint a rosy outlook. As such, we entered Saturday’s game against the Guardians watching perhaps his last start as an Astro, with no guarantee that he would even crack the Wild Card roster early next week. Starting against Cleveland this weekend likely means he won’t be on the active roster for the upcoming three-game series against the Royals or Tigers.

Although this afternoon’s game meant relatively nothing in the grand scheme of the postseason, it would be nice to see if Verlander could pick up one more win as an Astros pitcher. Perhaps find a little bit of his former glory along the way? Not exactly, but watching him tonight was still fun. First, Verlander didn’t have his best stuff, which has been a recurring theme for him this season. Only 10 whiffs on 57 swings. His four-seam fastball, in particular, had only four whiffs on 21 swings. Velocity topped out at nearly 97 mph but averaged around 93.5 mph. But as he mentioned in his post-game comments after his previous start at Minute Maid Park, he possibly came back too soon from his neck injury. But with the calendar not allowing much more time for him to ramp up, it was understandable why he would try.

I thought Verlander was due for a short outing following that first inning when José Ramírez punished that 79 mph curveball for a quick 2-0 deficit. But the future Hall of Famer bounced back and did pitch six innings of three-run ball against the Guardians on this Saturday afternoon, striking out five and walking no one. 70 strikes on 95 pitches. He wasn’t overpowering opposing hitters, but he was efficient if nothing else. Again, his biggest weakness was Ramírez, which is understandable. I mean, Ramírez is pretty great and drove in all three runs for Cleveland. Otherwise, Verlander pitched a fine game if this was indeed his final start as an Astro. If so, thank you for everything, JV. It was always a pleasure.

For the lineup, it was a bit of a skeleton crew. Jose Altuve, Alex Bregman, and Yainer Díaz all had the day off. Zach Dezenzo finished with two hits and drove in a run in the first with an RBI single off Ben Lively to make it 1-0 in Houston’s favor early. Mauricio Dubón barely missed the first grand slam of the season for the Astros. Jon Singleton had an RBI walk in the second to tie it up at two runs each. A fielding error a batter later brought in the third and fourth runs for a 4-2 lead after two innings. Otherwise, the lineup had a quiet third through ninth innings, although there were hits scattered throughout. Ramírez would drive in his third run of the game in the third to make it 4-3, but that would do it for all of the scoring in this game.

Héctor Neris, Ryan Pressly, and Shawn Dubin all pitched a scoreless inning of relief. Verlander got the win — number 262, good for him! — with the Astros picking up win number 88 on the season. A win tomorrow means they finished only one game worse than in 2023 when they had 90. Nothing changed on the Wild Card front with the Royals and Tigers both losing on Saturday and still competing for the fifth seed in the AL. A Tigers win on Sunday means the Royals will be Houston’s opponent in the Wild Card round. A Tigers loss and a Royals win would put Kansas City as the fifth seed and drop Detroit to the sixth seed due to the tiebreaker, guaranteeing the latter plays the Astros early next week.