{"id":173966,"date":"2025-09-28T00:20:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-28T00:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/173966\/"},"modified":"2025-09-28T00:20:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T00:20:08","slug":"justin-verlander-earns-a-win-in-final-start-of-year-as-giants-hold-off-rockies-4-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/173966\/","title":{"rendered":"Justin Verlander earns a win in final start of year as Giants hold off Rockies 4-3"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN FRANCISCO — – Justin Verlander<\/a> struck out seven and walked one over six innings to win his final start in a challenging year, and the San Francisco Giants<\/a> held off the Colorado Rockies<\/a> 4-3 on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Casey Schmitt<\/a> hit a go-ahead three-run homer in the second inning to support Verlander (4-11), who received 62 total runs of support in his 29 starts.<\/p>\n

T he 42-year-old right-hander signed<\/a> a $15 million, one-year contract in January and wrapped up his 20th major league season with career start No. 555 – which ranks 27th all-time. He also tied Bob Feller and Eppa Rixey for 34th place on baseball’s career win list with 266.<\/p>\n

Rafael Devers<\/a> added a key RBI double in the eighth for insurance before Colorado’s Jordan Beck<\/a> homered in the ninth off Ryan Walker<\/a>. Walker then surrendered Brenton Doyle<\/a>‘s double and was done after walking Kyle Karros<\/a> one out later.<\/p>\n

Spencer Bivens<\/a> entered and struck out Warming Bernabel<\/a>, then plunked Ryan Ritter<\/a> to load the bases. Third baseman Matt Chapman<\/a> then made a tough catch in foul territory on Ezequiel Tovar<\/a>‘s popup to end it as Bivens earned his second save.<\/p>\n

Hunter Goodman<\/a> homered in the first before Doyle connected the next inning for Colorado, which lost its fifth straight.<\/p>\n

After Schmitt’s home run, Kyle Freeland<\/a> retired the next 12 San Francisco hitters in order until Heliot Ramos<\/a> singled to start the sixth.<\/p>\n

Freeland (5-17) was tagged for three runs on three hits in six innings.<\/p>\n

The Rockies’ 118th defeat is the most in NL since the 1962 Mets lost 120.<\/p>\n

Key moment<\/p>\n

Tovar hit a two-out triple in the fifth before Verlander issued a four-pitch walk to Goodman. Then, Blaine Crim<\/a> struck out swinging as Verlander escaped unscathed.<\/p>\n

Key stat<\/p>\n

The Giants improved to 10-2 against the Rockies this season. Their best showing vs. Colorado came during the club’s NL West-winning 2021 season when they went 15-4.<\/p>\n

Up next<\/p>\n

RHP McCade Brown<\/a> (0-4, 7.54 ERA) pitches the season finale for the Rockies opposite Giants All-Star RHP Logan Webb<\/a> (14-11, 3.30), who is 2-0 with a 2.25 ERA and 13 strikeouts facing Colorado this year.<\/p>\n

——<\/p>\n

AP MLB: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/mlb<\/a>br\/]<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2025 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN FRANCISCO — – Justin Verlander struck out seven and walked one over six innings to win his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173967,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[113125,64,63,5259,794,591,5157,85],"class_list":["post-173966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-113125","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-colorado-rockies","tag-espn","tag-mlb","tag-san-francisco-giants","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173966\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}