Choppers pitcher Francisco Liriano
There have been a ton of close calls this season, but Francisco Liriano and Justin Verlander managed to break through to complete the first two no-hitters of the season in a span of five days. First, the Choppers’ Liriano picked up a no-no on Tuesday evening. Then, the Kings’ Verlander did the same on Saturday afternoon.
Of the two, Liriano’s no-hitter has to be the more improbable one. He entered the game against the White Sox with an ERA over 9.00. He had never pitched a complete game in his career. And for a while, it looked like he would have trouble completing this one as well. A bunch of early walks sent his pitch count soaring. On the game, he walked six and only struck out two. So there were probably at least a half dozen more impressive starts than his just last week, but a no-hitter deserves special mention. Despite the ugly walk/strike out numbers, it was very much a dominating performance. The White Sox hitters only hit a couple balls hard all evening.
Liriano is still having a tough season. His ERA stands at 6.61 and the win was only his second this season. He has walked more hitters than he has struck out too. Prior to this start, he was on the verge of a possible bullpen demotion by the Twins. You have to think the Choppers were losing patience with him as well. He has been the sour point on an otherwise surprisingly solid Choppers pitching staff. If he continues to pitch like he did last Tuesday, things could get very interesting as the Choppers already find themselves in third place and are the surprise team near the top of the standings right now.
Verlander’s no-hitter was less surprising and much more dominating. He took a perfect game into the 8th inning against the Blue Jays, but a walk to J.P. Arencibia on an extended at bat ruined that. Arencibia was quickly erased on a double play though, allowing Verlander to finish the game facing the minimum 27 batters. This was Verlander’s second career no-hitter, joining Mark Buehrle as the only active DTBL pitchers with multiple no-hitters. (Technically, Roy Halladay has two as well, but his playoff no-hitter didn’t count towards his DTBL stats, so I’m not including him.)
The Kings pitchers have had a mediocre start to the season, but Verlander has been solid as usual. He has a 3.16 ERA with 3 wins, a sub 1.00 WHIP and 55 strike outs. Verlander, his Tigers teammate Max Scherzer, and Tommy Hanson have been outstanding for the Kings, but the bottom of their rotation has been a disappointment.
As mentioned, there have been plenty of close calls on other potential no-hitters this season including Anibal Sanchez twice. Also, two Cougars pitchers took no-hitters into at least the 7th inning on the same night last Friday: Jaime Garcia and Derek Lowe. The way pitching has dominated so far this season, you have to figure we’ll see a few more guys complete the task.
Here’s another indication on just how good the pitching has been. Only one DTBL team has an ERA over 4.00 (Demigods). They were inching towards the 4.00 mark a couple days ago, so there is still a good chance we could see all ten teams under that mark at some point soon.
Once again, Mariano Rivera’s save record is getting bumped to a later post. I promise to write about him soon!