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SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Justin Verlander celebrated his 42nd birthday on Thursday and San Francisco Giants manager Bob Melvin made sure everyone in the clubhouse was aware of it. During the team’s morning meeting, all the rookies and first-year campers were instructed to get up and sing “Happy Birthday” to the three-time Cy Young Award winner.
Advertisement As players were getting up to begin their workout, Melvin hastily added, “Oh, and it’s Keaton Winn’s birthday, too.” Winn does not own three Cy Young Awards. He hasn’t banked close to $400 million in his career.
While Verlander is closing in on 300 victories, Winn owns three. The 27-year-old from small-town Iowa endured a major career setback last year when he went from the season-opening rotation to season-ending surgery to transpose an irritated ulnar nerve in his right elbow. He’s healthy now, but he also has a lot of talented pitchers potentially ahead of him on the depth chart.
Verlander’s birthday was the bigger deal. But Winn received the best gift of the day. He got to face hitters again.
For the first time in seven months. “It’s like, whew, finally,” said Winn, who threw live batting practice on the main field at Scottsdale Stadium. “I’m throwing on the mound for a reason again.
” Winn’s fastball was 95-97 mph and he said his signature splitter was the best the pitch has felt since 2023, when he was turning heads and lining himself up to be an impact performer in the major-league rotation. He threw two splits past Matt Chapman and walked off the mound to handshakes and back slaps. It was a much more enjoyable birthday than last year, part of which he spent in an MRI chamber.
“No sh ...
no doubt,” said Winn, smiling after he censored himself. “Getting an MRI on your birthday is not what you want.” Winn hadn’t felt great from the outset of camp last year but the pain wasn’t anywhere near what he felt before undergoing Tommy John surgery to reconstruct his UCL in 2021.
So he quietly tried to push through the stabbing discomfort, which would come and go. After his birthday MRI ruled out structural damage, he rested his arm for a couple of weeks and was able to build back up quickly enough to start the Giants’ fifth game of the season on April 1 at Dodger Stadium. But after six mostly competitive starts in April, the discomfort came back with a vengeance.
He posted a 13.50 ERA as the Giants lost each of his next six outings and was shut down following an abbreviated start on June 20. Advertisement “I had a big opportunity and my arm kind of messed everything up, I guess,” Winn said.
“The MRIs have trouble showing nerve inflammation and I wasn’t getting ringing in the fingers. So we went down the list and they said, ‘It’s gotta be this.’ Process of elimination.
It’s felt great since they went in and did it.” Winn didn’t pick up a baseball for four months but he had every assurance before the surgery that he’d be fully recovered by spring training. He worked out with big leaguers and fellow Iowans Mitch Keller and Colin Rea over the winter in Cedar Rapids and took time to make minor alterations to his pitch shapes.
He’s working on a slider that has a little more horizontal movement and he’s inducing a bit more ride on his four-seam fastball. His two-seam fastball is still a big part of his pitch mix, too. It’s the splitter that has a chance to be a separator, though.
Finally, he got the chance to throw it with a hitter standing in the box. “I was trying to not let it all go,” Winn said. “I’ve kind of learned my lesson from the past.
But whatever percentage I was at, it felt good. Just gotta reel in the fastball. The off-speed was all good, in the zone, put it where I wanted.
Just gotta control the fastball a little bit.” Winn said he prefers to remain a starter but is eager for any major-league role. He’s aware that there’s likely just one vacancy in the Giants rotation as long as Verlander, Logan Webb, Robbie Ray and Jordan Hicks remain healthy this spring.
In the competition for the final spot, there’s daylight between left-hander Kyle Harrison, right-hander Hayden Birdsong and everyone else. But the Giants expect Winn to contribute meaningful innings this season — even if they aren’t counting on him as heavily as they were a year ago. “He doesn’t get a lot of fanfare right now, but last year at this time we were really looking forward to him pitching a lot,” said Giants GM Zack Minasian, who highlighted Winn when asked which of the pitchers on the 40-man roster has stood out early in camp.
“He got off to a really good start after finishing strong in ’23 and unfortunately got hurt. So just having all of these guys healthy, going out and pitching like they do will be big for us.” Verlander and the drive for 300 If Verlander achieves his 300th victory, it won’t happen this season.
Likely not next season, either. He still needs 38 wins and might have to fulfill his goal of pitching past his 45th birthday to have a shot at getting to the milestone. There aren’t many people in Giants camp who are counting him out.
And emeritus pitching coach Dave Righetti is pulling for Verlander to reach it. Advertisement Righetti, who is in uniform with his trusty stopwatch while serving as a guest instructor this spring, understands better than most what traits are required to get to 300 wins. Righetti was a wild-armed 23-year-old in Yankee pinstripes visiting Seattle’s Kingdome on May 6, 1982, when he watched 43-year-old Gaylord Perry toss one of his 303 complete games to pick up his 300th career victory.
Three years later, on Aug. 4, 1985, Righetti watched a 40-year-old Tom Seaver take the mound for the Chicago White Sox at Yankee Stadium and throw a 145-pitch complete game to win his 300th. On the final day of that 1985 season, Yankees teammate Phil Niekro stopped a personal four-start skid and won No.
300 in unexpected fashion. He ditched his signature knuckleball while throwing a four-hit shutout over the Toronto Blue Jays at Exhibition Stadium, going off script in an otherwise meaningless game and beating them with changeups, curves and a screwball. Niekro, 46, became the oldest pitcher in baseball history to throw a shutout.
Righetti was on the dugout rail as the Giants’ pitching coach to witness two more 300-win games. On Aug. 7, 2004, 38-year-old Greg Maddux tossed five innings and the Chicago Cubs bullpen made his decision hold up in a victory in San Francisco.
And in 2009, when Bay Area native Randy Johnson finished his Hall of Fame career with one season with the Giants, Righetti made sure the relievers were lined up behind Johnson’s six innings on June 4, 2009, when the Giants won the first game of a doubleheader on a rainy afternoon at Nationals Park. Nobody has joined the 300-win club since Johnson became the 24th member. Given the way rotations are used in the modern game, Verlander might be the last pitcher who has a chance to become the 25th member.
Amazingly, Righetti has seen five of the milestone games in person. He’d like nothing better than to make it six. Scouting staff fortified Much was made about the Giants’ decision to reduce their pro scouting staff last year, but their headcount is back to previous levels after new pro scouting director Hadi Raad recently made six new hires.
Overall, the Giants have one more scout on the pro side and one fewer on the amateur side. (Top photo of Winn: Thearon Henderson / Getty Images).
