{"id":50289,"date":"2025-05-22T08:19:32","date_gmt":"2025-05-22T08:19:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatoday.azontree.com\/?p=50289"},"modified":"2025-05-22T08:19:32","modified_gmt":"2025-05-22T08:19:32","slug":"sf-giants-get-bad-news-in-chase-of-dodgers-as-15-million-righty-heads-to-il","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatoday.azontree.com\/?p=50289","title":{"rendered":"SF Giants Get Bad News in Chase of Dodgers as $15 Million Righty Heads to IL"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"post-featured-container-id\">\n<div id=\"post-featured\" class=\"has-video wp-caption \">\n<div class=\"h-responsive\">\n<figure class=\"h-responsive__inner\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"attachment-featured-image size-featured-image wp-post-image\" src=\"https:\/\/heavy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Giants-Justin-Verlander-Injury.jpg?quality=65&amp;strip=all&amp;w=780\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 820px) 95vw, 780px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/heavy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Giants-Justin-Verlander-Injury.jpg?quality=65&amp;strip=all&amp;w=780 780w, https:\/\/heavy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Giants-Justin-Verlander-Injury.jpg?quality=15&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1100 1100w, https:\/\/heavy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Giants-Justin-Verlander-Injury.jpg?quality=65&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1350 1350w\" alt=\"Justin Verlander\" width=\"780\" height=\"439\" data-dom-ready-time=\"637\" data-img-load-time=\"1202\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"wp-caption-text\"><span class=\"caption-credit\">Getty<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The San Francisco Giants, winners of four of their last five games heading into Wednesday, suffered twin setbacks as they attempt to dethrone their\u00a0longtime arch-rivals, the Los Angeles Dodgers, in the National League West. They\u00a0lost their game Wednesday\u00a0to the Kansas City Royals, while the Dodgers defeated the Arizona Diamondbacks, pushing San Francisco to two games behind the reigning World Series champions in the divisional race.<\/p>\n<p>But more importantly, the\u00a0Giants lost their future Hall of Fame\u00a0righty starter, Justin Verlander, for at least his next two scheduled starts.<\/p>\n<p>The Giants signed the 20-year veteran to a\u00a0one-year, $15 million contract\u00a0during the offseason. Though Verlander is 42 years old,\u00a0the oldest active player in MLB, he is only three years out from his third Cy Young Award win.<\/p>\n<h2>10th on the All-Time Career Strikeout Leaderboard<\/h2>\n<p>The second overall pick in\u00a0the 2004 draft, out of Old Dominion, Verlander debuted for the Detroit Tigers the following year, though he made only two appearances in 2005.<\/p>\n<p>In his rookie year of 2006, Verlander started 30 games and tied Kenny Rogers for the team lead in wins, compiling a 17-9 record and 3.63 ERA. He\u00a0took home American League Rookie of the Year honors and helped propel the Tigers to their first World Series since 1984.<\/p>\n<p>Since then, Verlander has led the AL in strikeouts five times. In 2018, pitching for the Houston Astros at age 35, he fanned a career high 290 while walking just 37 in 214 innings over a league-leading 34 starts.<\/p>\n<p>Verlander won the Cy Young Award in 2011 \u2014 when he also was named AL MVP and won a league-leading 24 games \u2014 and again in 2019 with the Astros. His third Cy Young, also with the Astros, came in 2022.<\/p>\n<p>Verlander leads all active pitchers\u00a0in strikeouts with 3,457, just 49 ahead of his former Tigers teammate Max Scherzer who is now on the Toronto Blue Jays staff. Verlander\u2019s strikeout total\u00a0places him 10th on the all-time\u00a0leaderboard. He needs 53 more to surpass\u00a0legendary Washington Senators hurler Walter Johnson.<\/p>\n<p>But after getting off to a slow start in what may be the final season of his certain Hall of Fame career, with an 0-3 record and 4.33 ERA through a league-high 10 starts, Verlander\u00a0was sent to the injured list\u00a0by the Giants on Wednesday \u2014 San Francisco\u2019s second setback as it attempts to walk down the Dodgers\u2019s lead in the division.<\/p>\n<h2>Verlander Has Been Injury-Prone in Last 2 Years<\/h2>\n<p>According to the Giants, as reported by\u00a0Grant Brisbee of\u00a0<em>The Athletic<\/em>, Verlander was diagnosed with \u201ca mild pectoral strain\u201d that will hold him out of his next two starts.<\/p>\n<p>In Verlader\u2019s most recent start,\u00a0May 18 against the club formerly known as the Oakland Athletics, Verlander was pulled after just four innings, during which he walked five batters and struck out only one. His fastball velocity was down as well \u2014 all the result if the pectoral \u201cdiscomfort,\u201d according to Brisbee\u2019s report.<\/p>\n<p>Though Giants manager Bob Melvin said he did\u00a0not expect Verlander to miss\u00a0more than two starts, last season with Houston, Verlander suffered what was initially described as a minor neck injury in June that ended up keeping him on the shelf for two months.<\/p>\n<p>The future Hall of Famer started the 2024 season on the IL with shoulder inflammation. Verlander ended the season with a career high 5.48 ERA, striking out only 74 in 90 2\/3 innings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Getty The San Francisco Giants, winners of four of their last five games heading into Wednesday, suffered twin setbacks as they attempt to dethrone their\u00a0longtime arch-rivals, the&#8230; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":50292,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>SF Giants Get Bad News in Chase of Dodgers as $15 Million Righty Heads to IL - 24\/7 News America<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/usatoday.azontree.com\/?p=50289\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"SF Giants Get Bad News in Chase of Dodgers as $15 Million Righty Heads to IL - 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