Justin Verlander has one more date in Tigertown. A first-ballot shoo-in for election to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in five years, Verlander will pitch the final game of his all-star-ridden 20 MLB seasons on Saturday.
Baseball in 2026 hasn’t gone the way Detroit players and fans had hoped for when camp broke in Lakeland, Florida, in March.
With three regular season games left on the schedule, the Tigers are playing for pride. Stuck in fourth place at 74–85 in the American League Central, Detroit will have no October games.
The club’s offseason begins after the last inning of Sunday’s afternoon game against the Pittsburgh Pirates. Aside from bidding adieu to the 126th MLB season in the Motor City, an old friend and pitching legend at Comerica Park is calling it a career.
Having last pitched on March 30 on the road against the Arizona Diamondbacks, Verlander took the loss after allowing five earned runs in 3.2 innings of work.
His ERA for the season is 12.27 leading into Saturday’s appearance. After what has been deemed a successful bullpen session on Tuesday, Tigers manager A.J. Hinch has given a thumbs-up for Verlander, eighth on MLB’s all-time strikeout list with 3,554 since the 2005 season, to toe the rubber one last time.
In July, before the All-Star Game, when MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred selected him as a Legend Pick, Verlander decided this would be his last year in a Tigers jersey.
“The writing was kind of on the wall. 300 wins, 4,000 strikeouts those are a few years away,” Verlander told reporters at the time. “The way the game is played now, wins are getting harder and harder to come by. I love this game. I’ve said I want to play as long as I can. I have been trending towards this conclusion for a while. I’m in a good place about it. … I’m happy for the future.”
What has kept Verlander, who has 266 victories, on the sidelines this season isn’t related to his right arm.
The former pitching ace, who has recorded three no-hitters, captured three Cy Young Awards, an American League MVP, has earned 10 All-Star selections, a Rookie of the Year Award, and two World Series Championships, has been hampered by left hip inflammation and a left hamstring strain.
Justin Verlander #35 of the Detroit Tigers before the 2026 MLB All-Star Game at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, Pa., on July 14, 2026. (Emilee Chinn/Getty Images)
“I think it’s pretty ironic that my arm is still doing what it is supposed to; serving me well for a long time now,” he said in July. “That’s not what’s failing me. So it wasn’t really hard [deciding to retire] or abrupt. I’ve had time to think about things and contemplate all the analysis needed to make this decision for me and my family.”
Losing Verlander, who has pitched parts of 14 seasons in a Tigers uniform, is another sign that 2026 hasn’t been kind to Hinch’s club. Tarik Skubal and Casey Mize, two anchors to the Tigers starting rotation, were dealt away at the trade deadline.
Framber Valdez, the top free agent Detroit landed in February (three-year deal, $115 million), has had a subpar season. His 10-12 record and 4.03 ERA aren’t what the Tigers organization envisioned when courting the two-time All-Star.
Jack Flaherty, another mainstay in the starting pitchers, has put up a disappointing 3–8 record and owns a bloated 4.59 ERA.
Being 14 games behind the Central-leading Cleveland Guardians, along with the Tigers being 19th among MLB’s 30 clubs in team hitting, odds are there will be sweeping changes coming from Detroit’s management this winter.
Verlander is being given one more chance to dazzle the hometown crowd at Comerica Park, where he last pitched as a Tiger in August 2017.
It’s going to be a tough call for Hinch on when to pull the former pitching ace. When the Tigers won their last two American League pennants in 2006 and 2012, Verlander won 17 games in each of those seasons.
If the Pirates’ lineup is hitting him hard or he physically looks to be struggling, Hinch surely has a Plan B just a call away in the bullpen.
Starting pitcher Justin Verlander #35 of the Detroit Tigers pitches in the first inning of Game Two of the American League Division Series against the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx Borough of New York City on Oct. 5, 2006. (Brendan McDermid/Getty Images)
All good baseball things will be coming to an end for Verlander on Saturday.
266 games and 3,571.1 innings later, as he makes one more trip to the mound on Woodward Avenue in Detroit, Verlander has earned the right to leave the game he has mastered on his own terms.
Few earn this luxury, and even fewer do so where they began their professional journey.
Come first pitch on Saturday, all around MLB cities, honorary Verlander fans will be pulling for a performance worthy of one of the greatest to compete in the past two decades.
