Carlos Pena saved Jim Leyland from one of the toughest decisions of his career.
The former Tiger broke up Justin Verlander's no-hit bid with one out in the seventh inning, meaning Leyland didn't have to consider pushing his ace to unprecedented pitch counts.
Verlander was already pushing 110 pitches when Pena singled to right field, and probably would have been over 140 if he had finished the no-hitter.
So would Leyland have let Verlander throw more than his career high of 132 pitches and risk an injury in a May blowout of the Astros?
"I really didn't think he had a chance to get there," Leyland said during the FOX Sports Detroit postgame show. "I was thinking about 125 pitches, 130 at the most."
Verlander isn't big on pitch counts, especially when they stand in the way of a shot at the record books. When Leyland pulled Anibal Sanchez after eight innings and 17 strikeouts last month, Verlander joked that the manager would have had to physically removed him from the field before he gave up a shot at tying the record of 20.
This time, though, Verlander's chance at a third no-hitter -- something that only Nolan Ryan, Sandy Koufax and Bob Feller have accomplished since 1900 -- had probably been doomed by a 26-pitch first inning.
As it turned out, Pena got Leyland off the hook.
"He guessed right," Verlander said of Pena's at bat. "A lot of times in this game, I had thrown off-speed in fastball counts.
"He thought otherwise. I threw a fastball, and he did a great job of getting on top of the fastball that was up in the zone."
The single let Leyland pull Verlander after seven shutout innings, 116 pitches and a 9-0 lead.
"I would have done what I felt like was the best thing to do for Justin Verlander's career and the Detroit Tigers," Leyland said. "I would have been caught up in a no-hitter like everybody else, and there's nothing wrong with that, but you can't do silly things."
He has seen this before from Verlander, so Leyland was more excited about a spectacular play by Miguel Cabrera. With the no-hitter still alive in the fifth inning, Cabrera made a tumbling stop of Brandon Laird's hard grounder, rolled over and threw from the seat of his pants to get the out.
"That's going to be on all the highlight shows tonight, so everyone is going to get another chance to see it," Leyland said. "If that's not somewhere in the top 10 tonight, they need to not have top 10s any more."
Pena's single came just as Verlander's teammates were starting to get excited.
"Justin's a great pitcher, and we all knew what he was doing," Andy Dirks said. "When you get to about the seventh inning, you start to think 'here we go.'"
Dirks didn't stay excited for long, however, because Pena beat Detroit's shift. Omar Infante was playing in shallow right field, but the ball went over his head and dropped in for a clean single.
That was the last bit of drama in the game, which stopped being a competitive contest when the Tigers scored eight runs in the first four innings.
Prince Fielder, Brayan Pena and Dirks hit early homers, and Omar Infante added a late shot to give the Tigers 26 runs in two days.
"The offense has been great the last two days," Dirks said. "Everyone feels really good at the plate right now, and it has shown in these last two games."
(The Associated Press contributed to this story.)
