It's been over a month since baseball fans last saw Justin Verlander on the mound, and the future Hall of Famer is still working his way back. The 43-year-old right-hander, who made his lone start for the Detroit Tigers on March 30, has been limited to bullpen sessions as he battles through an injury that has kept him on the sidelines since early April.

Verlander's season debut was a tough one—he allowed five runs on six hits and two walks with just one strikeout over 3⅔ innings against the Arizona Diamondbacks. Since then, he's been placed on the injured list (retroactive to April 1), and the road back has been anything but smooth.

"He's still fighting through it," Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said recently. "Which doesn't mean he should be shut down or changed. It just means it's slow. If people are wondering about him, he's pretty frustrated that it's not going faster."

Verlander has been completing bullpen sessions—including one on Wednesday—and is expected to throw again this weekend. But despite those efforts, there's still no clear timeline for a rehab assignment or return to game action.

"We're really trying to just get through the bullpens without symptoms," Hinch explained. "It's why we're really just doing one step at a time. The hope is that he's able to add more and more every session. He's been able to do that slowly, but I just don't know until we get him past this little hump of the bullpens being asymptomatic."

For a pitcher with Verlander's pedigree—a 21-year MLB veteran, two-time World Series champion, and nine-time All-Star—this kind of setback is especially frustrating. He signed a one-year, $13 million contract with the Tigers in early February, marking his return to Detroit for the first time since being traded to the Houston Astros in September 2017.

At 43, every recovery takes a little longer, and every setback feels a little heavier. But if anyone knows how to fight through adversity, it's Verlander. For now, Tigers fans will have to be patient as their ace works through this "little hump" and gets back to doing what he does best.