Justin Verlander has pitched in the majors for 15 seasons , long enough for his craft to evolve in ways he does not like. Verlander, 36 , has led the majors in innings pitched three times. He wishes that teams still emphasized durability, but he has learned to adjust.

“That’s what the game is trending towards: you’ve got to miss bats, try to remove as many base runners as you can,” he said last month, after a start in Baltimore. “I’ve definitely adapted to that and kind of changed the way I pitch. Obviously it’s cost me some innings — I used to be somebody who’d throw 250 innings a year, and now it’s 200, 210.

“I still think the 200 number is a big, important milestone, but it used to be pretty easy to blow by because you’d pitch to contact a little bit more. The game’s changed and so have I.”