Justin Verlander, aging like fine wine, pulls a Greg Maddux

Justin Verlander was nothing short of sensational on Saturday night in his start against the Seattle Mariners. 

Despite being 39 years old, Justin Verlander of the Houston Astros is showing no signs of slowing down. Just ask the Seattle Mariners and the fans at T-Mobile Park about that. On Saturday, Verlander took the bump and he was downright brilliant.

On the night, the veteran righty tossed eight innings, giving up only three hits and recording eight strikeouts. Only tossing 87 pitches too, Verlander joined some elite company with his showing in Seattle.

Justin Verlander looks like his old self following Tommy John Surgery

Verlander missed all of the 2021 campaign due to Tommy John Surgery. Baseball fans across the world were robbed of his outstanding abilities, but he reminded everyone of just how dominant he can be with his display against the Mariners.

As mentioned in the tweet above, Verlander became the first hurler since 1997 to toss eight shutout innings on the road, record at least eight strikeouts and do so with less than 90 pitches. Hall-of-Famer Greg Maddux was the last one to get that job done.

From start to finish against the M’s, Verlander looked like a man on a mission. Seattle has some outstanding hitters in the lineup, but they just couldn’t come up with much of anything against Verlander. This came a day after Seattle scored 11 runs in their series-opening win over Houston.

People in the Emerald City had high expectations leading up to Game 2, but Verlander brought everyone back to earth. Now, Verlander will hope to keep pitching at such a high level the rest of the way. With Houston having high expectations for 2022 – as the team is hoping to get back to the World Series – Verlander is only getting started. It could be a year to remember for him.