Two for One Tuesday

I don't know what the title means for this one so don't ask . . . come to think of it, I don't know what a lot of my titles mean, I just feel obligated to put something that might be mistaken for cleverness in the title line. Anyway Tuesday brought us a no-hitter in Detroit, Brad Lidge is apparently still having nightmares about Albert Pujols, and an NBA Finals game which makes fun of itself.


Verlander Makes Brewers Look Silly with Some Help From . . . the Brewers


Justin Verlander threw a no-hitter against the Milwaukee Brewers tonight, striking out 12 and walking four. No-hitters are a rare and spectacular feat, always have been and always will be, and truly there is nothing like watching a baseball game and suddenly realizing in the 6th inning that no ones gotten a hit yet. Amazing stuff it really is, so congrats to Verlander for a night that he will always remember. I have to be honest here, I wasn't actually watching Verlander pitch, in fact I didn't hear about it until near the end of the Red Sox game I was watching at the time. However I did see the highlights and I have to say that while the Brewers did not get credit for any hits tonight, they certainly deserve credit for making Verlander's no-hit bid a good deal easier on him.

I hate to take credit away from Verlander for what he did but the Brewers had some truly awful at bats tonight. Had Milwaukee exercised any amount of plate discipline at all they probably could have coaxed Verlander to throw some more hittable pitches and avoided going down on the wrong side of history. Don't get me wrong, I can understand striking out on a 99 mph pitch that paints the black, but striking out a half dozen different times on 58-foot sliders? I can understand a couple of times but over half of Verlander's strike outs were on just awful swings at pitches that just weren't close. You get paid to hit a baseball for a living, you have to know that the big breaking ball in the dirt is coming, the least you can do is lay off a pitch that never really even approaches the strike zone.

I didn't really pay much attention to Mark Buerhle's no-hitter earlier this year, and off of the top of my head I can't really remember a lot of the no-hitters in the past, but if I had to guess, the situation between the Brewers' and Verlander tonight is probably a pretty common one when it comes to these kind of pitching performances. Plain and simple it takes a lot of luck, whether it be from over-anxious hitters or some spectacular defense, no-hitters are rare for a reason. If you look at some of the names on the list of people who have thrown no-hitters (Hideo Nomo) or perfect games (Dennis Martinez), it doesn't take you long to realize that a lot of these guys weren't exactly waiting for the Hall of Fame to call five years after they retired. Not to say that Verlander won't go on to have a long Hall of Fame worthy career, because he might. And not to say that throwing a no-hitter isn't something he should always be proud of, because it is. But these things need to be taken with a grain of salt. Yes, Verlander threw a great game, but also, he got pretty lucky too.

Lidge has Flashbacks of the 2005 Postseason

I like Brad Lidge and think he is a great pitcher, so I won't harp on this long, but tonight in his first appearance since being reinstated as the Houston Astros closer, Lidge gave up a home run to the first batter he faced to blow the save. Honestly, I just feel bad for the guy. He starts off the season horrible and gets pulled from the closer's roll, and like a trooper he performs fantastically as the set-up man. So well in fact, that he re-earned his job as the closer, and this is what happens his first night back on the job. Now the Astros ended up winning in extra innings, and Lidge did an excellent job to work the rest of the 9th inning without allowing any further damage, that is important to note. The truth of the matter is that Lidge went from invincible 9th inning machine to a pitcher with great stuff and a shaky psyche with one swing of the bat. That swing belonged to Albert Pujols in the 2005 National League Championship Series and the result was one of the hardest and farthest hit baseballs I have ever witnessed. You won't believe me but I remember thinking to myself at that very moment that Lidge would never be the same. I still hope I am wrong about that, but so far I haven't been.

Hopefully Lidge will bounce back from this setback and continue on with a great career as a closer. To be honest the first game back after blowing a game is really where the true test will be for Lidge and the Astros knew that. He could have reeled off a bunch of saves in a row but the team wouldn't have known if he was really back until he had to bounce back from blowing a game. Maybe Lidge just decided to prove he was back, right out of the gate, I hope thats the case.

I Know the NBA Finals are Supposed to be Important but . . .

The final score of tonights game was 75-72 in favor of the Spurs. That's barely a respectable score for a high school game. The Spurs are now up 3-0 in the series. I am seriously done talking about this, the whole thing just makes fun of itself.

That's all everybody, once again thanks for reading. And I apologize if there are some errors or typos in this post, the computer I am working on is being obscenely slow and I don't have the patience to proof read today. Leave some feedback, you know the drill.