Justin Verlander joins elite company with eye-opening performance

Houston Astros star pitcher Justin Verlander is a first-ballot Hall of Famer. That’s been known for some time now.

Taking on the Milwaukee Brewers Wednesday evening, Verlander added to his Cooperstown resume in a big way. The former Cy Young winner and seven-time All-Star struck out a career-high 15 batters in seven innings.

All 15 strikeouts were of the swinging variety, putting Verlander in an elite group.

Justin Verlander has a career-high 15 strikeouts tonight.

And they're all swinging strikeouts.

It's just the 5th time in the pitch-tracking era (since 2008) that a pitcher has had 15+ swinging strikeouts, joining Max Scherzer (twice), Carlos Carrasco & Danny Duffy.

— Sarah Langs (@SlangsOnSports) June 13, 2019

What’s even crazier about this performance is the fact that 75 of Verlander’s 100 pitches were strikes. Verlander also caused 29 swings and misses throughout the game.

He’s only the second pitcher in Astros history to strikeout 15 batters without a single walk, joining all-time great Randy Johnson in that club.

That’s just some pure domination right there from the veteran. And while Verlander did give up three solo homers, we can add this to his Hall of Fame credentials.