Since There's always MTOWTDI (and I'm experimenting with look-ahead assertions):
#!/perl/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use Data::Dumper;
use List::Util qw/ max /;
my $s = "ASBSDEC 34 GADVVEEVEETTE 56 IOEOREAK GKJEOG EFEAF 1090 DAFFEE
+ 376";
# use a look-ahead assertion to split string into array of strings and
+ numbers
# the corresponding string occupies the index immediately preceding th
+e number
my @arr = split /(\D+)(?=\d+)/, $s;
# grep only for the numbers in the list, selecting the largest one
print max(grep { /^\d+$/ } @arr), "\n";
__OUTPUT__
1090
Update: Corrected typo diligently found by liverpole++
Where do you want *them* to go today?