Major League Baseball

Verlander poised to join elite group

Published May. 7, 2011 1:00 a.m. ET

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Justin Verlander threw his first no-hitter on June 12, 2007, and I watched it from the press box at Comerica Park.

Verlander threw his second no-hitter on Saturday afternoon in Toronto, and I watched the ninth inning at home with my wife and mother-in-law.

I don’t know where I’ll be when Verlander throws his third no-hitter. But I’m quite confident in this: If he stays healthy there will be a third Verlander no-hitter.

Like presidential elections and the Olympics, Verlander appears to be on an every-fourth-year cycle. At this point, there is every reason to believe it will continue.

Verlander is the 27th pitcher to throw two or more solo no-hitters in the major leagues, according to STATS LLC. To put that number in perspective, just as many players have reached 3,000 hits in the modern era.

The 300-win club — with 24 members — is only slightly more select.

So, after Saturday’s 9-0 win over the Blue Jays, Verlander belongs to one of the most exclusive country clubs in baseball history. But even more remarkable is how close Verlander is to joining the elite of the elite. With one more no-hitter, he would experience the baseball equivalent of getting a first-class upgrade on Air Force One.

Of all the men to pitch after 1900, only four have thrown three or more no-hitters: Nolan Ryan (seven), Sandy Koufax (four), Cy Young (three), and Bob Feller (three). If ever we wished to immortalize our pitching greats on a slab of granite in South Dakota, that foursome would be a good place to start.

Verlander, who turned 28 only a few months ago, has ample time to join them. There are plenty of reasons to believe that he will.

Verlander has not spent a day on the disabled list since joining the Tigers’ rotation on a full-time basis in 2006. He possesses freakish arm strength, as evidenced by the 100-mph fastball he threw to Rajai Davis — for the 106th of his 108 pitches on Saturday. And the prime of his career will coincide with the Era of the Nightly No-Hitter Alert.

If anything, No-Hitter No. 2 was more impressive than No-Hitter No. 1. Were it not for Toronto rookie catcher J.P. Arencibia, you would probably be reading about a perfect game. The Blue Jays were still looking for their first baserunner when Arencibia dug in with one out in the eighth, at which point he and Verlander locked into an arm-wrestling stalemate that lasted the entire lunch hour.

The at-bat went on for 12 pitches. Verlander threw fastballs that registered 101, 100 and (yes, again) 100 miles per hour, according to MLB.com. The last of them veered outside for a ball, and Arencibia took his base.

There was no controversy, no Jim Joyce moment. Verlander just missed, as hard as that may have been to believe. When Trevor Thompson of FOX Sports Detroit asked Verlander afterward about losing the perfect game, he shook his head, shrugged his shoulders, and gave credit to Arencibia. “An amazing at-bat,” Verlander said.

Really, the day was defined by what happened next: Verlander refocused, induced the inning-ending double play ball, and coolly went about notching the 25th, 26th and 27th outs. He had every reason to unravel — the lopsided score, the 12-pitch walk, the 20-minute wait while the Tigers slugged through a two-run top of the ninth. He never did. Verlander acted like he had been there before — which, of course, he had.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that Verlander’s reaction to the Arencibia walk was entirely in character for him. When Verlander loses — in an at-bat, in a game — he dismisses it quickly, as if it’s a statistical fluke rather than evidence of a shortcoming on his part.

After bad starts, Verlander tends to muse about mechanical flaws or wonder aloud if he’s tipping his pitches. The notion that the other team was simply better? That’s probably never occurred to him.

I’ve never lost a game. I just ran out of time. The saying is popular among high school football teams. It is also tattooed on the inside of Justin Verlander’s psyche.

“He’s never believed that a hitter has beaten him,” said longtime Detroit teammate Zach Miner, now with the Kansas City Royals.

Verlander has been an ace since 2007, his second full season in the majors. But he’s also demonstrated a curious tendency to run up high pitch counts — and lose — against inferior opponents.

I remember asking Tigers manager Jim Leyland this spring if Verlander could become a little more like Roy Halladay, someone who dominates with complete games of fewer than 100 pitches.

Verlander’s stuff is so good, Leyland answered, that some hitters simply foul off pitches before taking a walk or strikeout — hence the high pitch counts.

Saturday was different. Verlander admitted after the game that his curveball wasn’t all that good, so he was forced to locate his fastball (albeit at 101 mph). The result was a Halladay-esque performance — one season after Halladay threw his pair of no-hitters.

Maybe Verlander realized something on Saturday about ways of pitching more efficiently. If so, that is a scary proposition for the rest of the American League.

More than anything, though, I believe Saturday’s game was a case of Verlander knowing precisely what to do when presented with a chance to make history. Some pitchers, late in a no-hit bid, will wonder if they are good enough to do it. To Justin Verlander, that has never been a question and likely never will be.

With two outs in the ninth inning, he looked back at his infielders and smiled. Who does that? The same guy who, at age 26, spoke candidly about his aspirations of making the Hall of Fame.

“The Hall of Fame’s always been a goal of mine, ever since I was a little kid,” Verlander told me in an interview two years ago. “When I was younger, I wanted to beat Nolan Ryan’s strikeout record, but I know that’s not going to happen. The Hall of Fame is something I feel is attainable, but that’s a long ways off.”

Yes, it is. And Ryan’s strikeout record is indeed out of the question. But Ryan’s no-hit record?

That’s a topic we can address again . . . probably sometime in 2015.

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