San Francisco Giants Newest Star Pitcher Nears Remarkable Career Feat

With spring training coming to a close soon, the San Francisco Giants are hoping for a better campaign in 2025. 

The Giants didn’t make a ton of moves this offseason to improve, but the franchise still feels optimistic about the year. 

This winter, they made two notable additions in free agency, with Willy Adames coming in to help bolster a lineup that badly needed a spark. 

Slugging has been an issue for San Francisco for many years and Adames has the pedigree to help fix that. 

While the talented shortstop will hopefully be improving the lineup, the team will also hope that their addition to the starting rotation can help replace the departing Blake Snell. 

Jeff Passan of ESPN.com (paid subscription required) spoke about veteran right-hander heading into uncharted waters for pitchers these days, with the future Hall of Famer looking to add to his impressive resume. 

“When he makes his first outing for the Giants, 42-year-old Justin Verlander will become the oldest player to start a game for the team since a 45-year-old Randy Johnson took the ball 17 times in 2009.”

It has been an amazing career for the future Hall of Famer, but it’s hard to predict what type of pitcher San Francisco will be getting in 2025. 

Last year, the veteran right-hander dealt with a neck injury that really derailed his season. However, when on the mound, he wasn’t great either, with an ERA over 5.00. 

While the one-year deal that they gave Verlander this winter comes with little long-term risk, this is a team that is seemingly relying on him to be productive this season. 

Based on last year and his age, it is going to be hard to do that until proven otherwise. Luckily, Verlander is on the right track in doing that with an excellent spring so far. 

This spring, he has totaled a fantastic 1.69 ERA in 16 innings. Even though spring training stats can generally be overvalued, they do become important in this particular situation with the struggles of the right-hander this past year. 

As the Giants head into the new campaign, the rotation will have question marks, but will also have upside. 

Veterans like Verlander and Robbie Ray are coming off bad years in 2024, but they have also won Cy Young Awards recently. 

If these two veterans are able to pitch closer to that level than the one of 2024, the rotation for San Francisco could be quite good with Logan Webb leading the way. 

With the goal of reaching 300 wins in mind, Verlander is going to have to stay healthy and continue to perform well for the next couple of years. This is not an easy mark to reach, but the veteran right-hander will be looking to cement his legacy.