Oracle Park still has SF Giants starter Justin Verlander's number

Veteran SF Giants starter Justin Verlander has had two rough outings at Oracle Park to begin his Giants career. Unfortunately, his career numbers at Oracle Park remain subpar which is a bit surprising to say the least.

The 42-year-old has twenty years of MLB experience under his belt, but in that time he has only made four career starts in Oracle Park. In those four starts he has pitched 18 innings and has allowed 15 earned runs. Verlander is one of the best pitcher's of his generation, so the fact that he has struggled so mightily in what is typically one of the more pitcher-friendly ballparks in baseball comes as something of a surprise.

Oracle Park still owns SF Giants starter Justin Verlander in small sample size

The sample size is still fairly small. These are just four starts after all with the first one coming way back in 2008 when he was a member of the Detroit Tigers. Of course, the most famous of these outings (perhaps infamous from his perspective) came in Game 1 of the 2012 World Series when Verlander gave up five earned runs in four innings and gave up two home runs to Pablo Sandoval which the Giants reminded Verlander of prior to him taking the ball in the team's home opener.

If things go according to plan, Verlander will have plenty more starts at Oracle Park this season to help lower that high ERA he has when pitching in San Francisco. Thankfully, he says that he feels fine physically after his most recent start on Wednesday so perhaps he is just a minor mechanical tweak or two away from figuring things out.

To be fair, all of the damage the Reds did against Verlander came in one inning. They put up five runs in the top of the 3rd inning but after that Verlander calmed things down and was able to get to pitch into the 6th inning without allowing any more runs which kept the Giants in the game and allowed them to have an epic walk-off victory.

It is not time to declare that Oracle Park and Verlander simply do not get along, but with each start that he struggles in at home it will only feed into that narrative that ever since Sandoval launched those homers against him in the World Series he just has not been able to pitch well in San Francisco.

If that is the cosmic bargain that was made in order for the Giants to win the 2012 World Series then so be it, but for the sake of the 2025 Giants let's hope Verlander can start delivering some quality starts at Oracle Park sooner rather than later.