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 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. “If it wasn’t that situation,” Verlander said of Rivera’s chirp, “I probably would have reacted differently.”
Given the way the now Houston Astros right-hander dominated the Blue Jays Sunday in his third career no-hitter, there’s no chance anybody will be thinking he got lucky. Verlander was beyond overpowering, striking out 14, generating 23 swinging strikes on 120 pitches and allowing just a single walk, a first-inning free pass to Cavan Biggio.
Back in 2011, Verlander was trying to scale back on strikeouts and pitch more to contact, striking out only four Blue Jays in that no-no. Since joining the Astros, he’s become one of the poster boys for the high-four-seamers-curveball revolution sweeping across baseball.
Underlining his dominance 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. He needed a nice play from Aledmys Diaz at first to get the out on that play, but beyond that, his defence didn’t really have to steal any hits.
To their credit, the Blue Jays kept pace with him until the ninth, when Canadian rookie Abraham Toro hit a two-run homer off Ken Giles to break a scoreless tie.
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A crowd of 24,104 rooted Verlander on in the bottom of the ninth as Brandon Drury grounded out, Reese McGuire struck out and Bo Bichette grounded out to Toro at third base.
It’s the fourth no-hitter thrown at Rogers Centre and second by Verlander. Dave Stewart and Canadian James Paxton threw the others.
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September 02, 2019 at 02:53AM
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