Way to go, Justin!

Well, it happened again. A no hitter that I had absolutely nothing to do with. It wasn't until I checked the current matchup against my brother Dave last night that I saw Verlander's line. First I saw 41 points, then, CG, 4 BB, 12 K's (wow), and no hits. So, of course, I went off to MLB.com to see than, once again, I had missed an entire no-hitter. If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times - never, ever, will I witness any part of a no-hitter. My most recent breakup was when I tuned in UM - Oregon State game this weekend. Michigan's Zach Putnam had gone 8 innings with a no hitter. After two outs,he was one strike away from a no-hitter when he gave up an RBI, game losing single. I'm a no-hitter curse.

Anyway, Justin. I was wrong about you. I saw him pitch in person in 2005, and when he was called up to the rotation for 2006 I said, "He's better than former #5 starter Wil Ledezma... I guess." But I was pretty sure this was a case of premature call up, and I didn't want to see the guy lose his confidence because he wasn't ready and we had no one else to throw out there. Oops. Way to go, man. And 12 K's with only 112 pitches? Considering he faced 30 batters, that's impressive. That's less than 4 pitches a man. That's the only way to do it - you have to be economical with your pitches. And a lot of time, strike out pitchers use up so many pitches they have trouble with that.

The Hit Streak v. the Perfect Game: Superstitions - April 3rd, 2006
Tigers dump Pena and re-tool for 2006 - March 26th, 2006