TORONTO – On May 7, 2011, as Justin Verlander dissected the Toronto Blue Jays en route to his second career no-hitter, Juan Rivera walked past the mound after a seventh-inning groundout, turned to the then Detroit Tigers ace and told him he was "getting lucky."
Trash talk while being dominated, really? Well, Rivera said the next day, he simply uttered what he felt, and that gamesmanship wasn’t his motivation. He flew out to left in the first inning and struck out looking in the fourth that day, when only an eighth-inning walk by J.P. Arencibia prevented a perfect game in a 9-0 Tigers win. "If it wasn’t that situation," Verlander said of Rivera’s dig, "I probably would have reacted differently."
No one would have had the audacity to chirp the now Houston Astros righty as he completely dominated the Blue Jays on Sunday for his third career no-hitter, striking out 14 batters in a 2-0 win secured by Canadian Abraham Toro’s two-run homer in the top of the ninth.
Verlander was beyond overpowering, generating 23 swinging strikes on 120 pitches, allowing just a single walk, a first-inning free pass to Cavan Biggio, and surrendering only three balls with an exit velocity in excess of 89 m.p.h. In contrast, four balls left the bat at 74 m.p.h. or less.
"He was unbelievable," praised Astros catcher Robinson Chirinos.
[snippet id=4722869]
Back in 2011, Verlander was trying to scale back on strikeouts and pitch more to contact, striking out only four Blue Jays during that gem. But since joining the Astros late in 2017, he’s become one of the poster boys for the high-four-seamers-curveball revolution sweeping across baseball, enjoying a late-career renaissance that’s bolstered a Hall-of-Fame trajectory.
As he became just the sixth pitcher in major-league history to record a third career no-hitter — joining Nolan Ryan (7), Sandy Koufax (4), Bob Feller (3), Cy Young (3) and Larry Corcoran (3) — Verlander threw 78 fastballs at an average of 94.5 m.p.h and topping out at 97.2, along with 26 sliders, 12 curveballs and four changeups.
The two no-nos felt totally different.
"Yeah, they do," said Verlander. "It’s been a long process for me to get back to being the pitcher I wanted to be. That last one, 2011, was kind of at the height of my pitching as a young man, ’11, ’12 went well, then ’13, ’14 had some injuries that plagued me a little bit. The process of coming back is not easy… Nobody really gets to see that work effort. To have it come together on a day like this, and really over the last couple of years, it’s special. You’d hate to work that hard and have it not work out. It’s nice to have some success."
Underlining his dominance Sunday is that the Blue Jays hit just three balls harder than the speed at which they came in, led by Billy McKinney’s 103.4 m.p.h. groundout in the fifth. Verlander needed a nice play from Aledmys Diaz at first to get an out on that play, but beyond that the Astros defence wasn’t pressed to steal any hits.
"That was fantastic," said Verlander. "Great play. Bad pitch on my part. Every no-hitter needs something to go your way and that was a pretty poor pitch that was hit pretty hard. Fortunately, it was on the ground and AD over there is a great athlete and was able to knock it down and make a great play."
To their credit, Blue Jays pitchers Wilmer Font, Sam Gaviglio and Zack Goldey kept pace with Verlander until the ninth, when Toro, a native of Longuiel, Que., in his eighth big-league game, hit a two-run homer off Ken Giles to break a scoreless tie.
Astros manager A.J. Hinch said Verlander was headed back out for the ninth no matter what happened, but the home run set up the opportunity for Verlander to complete the no-no.
"That’s what made Toro’s homer so special," said Verlander. "The moments matter in this game and this seemed kind of scripted for him in his home country. All the guys were so fired up. You take everything into account that went into that moment, that’s baseball, those are the special moments I don’t think you can create anywhere else… Two outs. What a spot. What an incredible moment."
Understandably, the drive triggered pandemonium in the Astros dugout. Toro, a 22-year-old selected in the fifth round of the 2016 draft, was grinning all the way through.
"The whole dugout was going crazy because everyone knew what was on the line for JV," said Toro.
Verlander pushed things up a notch his third time through the lineup, with Biggio’s third trip up leading off the seventh especially pivotal. Having already worked one walk, he pushed the eight-time all-star to a three-ball count for just the fourth time in all — Bo Bichette would make it five in the ninth — before taking what he thought was ball four and umpire Paul Emmel decided was strike three.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr., proceeded to pop out before Justin Smoak flew out to centre to end the frame.
"It’s the seventh and it’s a sticky situation there because it’s a 0-0 game," Verlander said of the 3-2 pitch to Biggio. "Can I throw a chase pitch, maybe, to preserve the no-hitter? At the same time, we’ve got a ballgame that we have to win here so ended up executing a fastball down and into him that froze him. He’s a tough guy to get to chase the ball, anyway."
Verlander got a couple more borderline called third strikes as he struck out the side in the eighth inning and a crowd of 24,104 rooted Verlander on in the bottom of the ninth as he worked to close out the no-no.
Brandon Drury grounded out to short for the first out before Reese McGuire struck out, bringing up Bichette. As he approached the plate, Chirinos headed out to the mound, as Verlander had noticed that Bichette drops his leg kick with two outs. "He told me if you see him doing that early, let me know because I don’t want him to (shorten up and) get a hit," explained the catcher.
Bichette kept swinging big, unleashing on and just missing on a 96.3 m.p.h. middle-middle fastball with the count 2-1. Verlander followed with a chase slider that Bichette didn’t even flinch at.
"I think he took a decent slider there," said Verlander. "I thought maybe the moment would get to him and he would be more apt to chase something that wasn’t even close and he didn’t. He gave me a good battle."
Three pitches later, Bichette rolled over a 96.9 m.p.h. fastball down and away to Toro at third base, who calmly threw the ball over to Diaz, who had to stretch up to get the pitch. The fourth no-hitter thrown at Rogers Centre, two by Verlander, and sixth ever against the Blue Jays was done.
"Honestly? Please be an out, please be an out," Verlander said of what he was thinking as the ball was put in play. "I saw him kind of catch a seam, he got under the ball so it was like a Frisbee going over to first base. I was like, ‘Please don’t go over his head.’ Then, as soon as he catches it, it’s just like, it’s elation. It’s a little bit, what do I do now? Where are my teammates? I’m going to celebrate. Hurry and get out here. It’s so cool to have everybody jumping up and down."
There was a massive hug for Chirinos, whom Verlander praised while thanking his teammates in the clubhouse afterwards, along with a big one for Toro on the field.
"I was feeling the same and when it got to two outs, I looked behind and was more realizing what was going on," Toro said of how he felt playing defence in the ninth. "Then I got the ball and made the out."
Verlander entered the ninth with 106 pitches, and had he lost Bichette, Hinch might have been in a tough spot. Closer Roberto Osuna was warmed and ready, just in case, but it never came to that.
"I’ve run a pitcher up to 149 pitches in a no-hitter (Edwin Jackson’s eight-walk no-no in 2010) so I’m probably the last guy you need to talk to about being uncomfortable with pitch counts," said Hinch. "With a veteran pitcher it’s not nearly as uncomfortable. If that had been a really young guy, first-year guy or second-year guy, or someone coming off arm troubles, that would have been a little bit nerve-wracking. But I like no-hitters even if there are big pitch counts."
Verlander ended up throwing 14 pitches in the ninth inning. Ten were fastballs, at an average of 96 m.p.h. His hardest pitch of the day was a 3-2 fastball the Bichette fouled off before grounding out.
"I had memories of blowing a few in the past in the ninth, so I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t thinking about that," said Verlander. "Just trusting what got me to this point. My fastball had been good all day, it had really good life on it and my slider was a little bit inconsistent so I would have kicked myself in the butt a little bit if I got beat on a bad one, so I leaned on my fastball in the last inning and was able to get some outs."
Twenty-seven of them in all, once again a single walk away from perfection on the mound in Toronto.
[relatedlinks]
