There are few pitchers in the game today who have the ability to make people believe that on any given fifth day, there's the possibility that he is about to throw a no-hitter. Most times, when an event like that occurs, it's almost passed off as being "just his day", making it sound like a fluke. And it probably is "just his day" when it happens. Not this guy.
On June 12, 2007, a crowd of 33,555 packed in to Comerica Park expecting to see a well played major league baseball game. What they got instead was a look to the future of a 24 year old pitcher who's number he borrowed from a slugging first baseman he grew up idolizing.
It's true. Frank Thomas was big time when Justin Verlander was growing up. And as a little leaguer in Manakin Sabot, VA, he picked number 35 out of a box of uniforms, just for Mr. Thomas . How fitting. One of this centuries hardest throwers paying homage to one of last centuries biggest boppers.
But back to that night in 2007. In an inter-league match up against a team with the second most home runs in the majors at that point in the year, Verlander became the first pitcher since Nolan Ryan on July 15, 1973 to throw a no-hitter in Detroit, this against the Milwaukee Brewers. He walked four, but struck out a then career high twelve in his bid for history. It was the first no-no thrown at Comerica, which held its first baseball game on April 11, 2000. It is still the only one thrown there to this day.
-- A funny note about the Brewers home stadium, Miller Park. There has also been just one no-hitter thrown there in its brief history (it opened in 2001). Except the Milwaukee Brewers did not participate in that game. Carlos Zambrano of the Cubs no-hit the Houston Astros on September 14, 2008. It was officially a home game for Houston, as Minute Maid Park had taken on a bit of damage from a tropical storm earlier in the week --
Since that night, Verlander has matured into one of the most dominant pitchers in the game. His 2.38 ERA ranks him fifth in all of baseball among starters, and he's second in strikeouts with 124. Justin also leads the majors in innings pitched, and has completed two of his last three games.
In his only rough outing on the year, Verlander gave up six earned runs over six innings at home against the Tampa Bay Rays, a game in which the Tigers would rally back and win, 7-6, on consecutive home runs by catcher Alex Avila in the 6th and 8th innings. Every other start this season has been what is called a "quality start". That is, at least 6.0 innings pitched and no more than 3 earned runs. To me, that's not a quality start. A 4.50 ERA is less than quality, but hey, I don't come up with the stats, I just use them. That's 16 official quality starts out of 17 games started. Quite impressive.
Since the 6 run outing on May 24 (anyone notice I keep mentioning May 24??) he has given up four runs in 49.2 innings. That equates to a minute 0.72 ERA over the last calendar month, to go along with 51 K's.
Just ask the Cleveland Indians and Arizona Diamondbacks how good Justin Verlander is. The combined score for those two games he pitched in the last week and a half were 10-0, with the 6 foot 5 righty tossing 17 innings of shutout baseball, giving up just six hits, with 2 walks and 26 strikeouts.
Or hey, you can even ask the Toronto Blue Jays how much they love facing him. They probably know best just how good he is.
The game in Toronto against the Blue Jays on May 7, 2011 was the greatest pitching performance of Verlander's professional career to this point, and his second career no-hitter. He only struck out four hitters, but had just one man reach base all night. That was a walk to catcher J.P. Arencibia in the 8th, and got Edwin Encarnacion to ground into an inning-ending double play three pitches later.
Verlander is one of 3 active SP with multiple no-hit performances. Roy Halladay and Mark Buehrle are the other two, and he is significantly younger than they are. At the time of his second no-hitter, Justin was 28 years old. In comparison, Buehrle was 30 years old when he tossed his second on July 23 of 2009, while Halladay was 33 (Oct. 6, 2010). If anyone is counting, Nolan Ryan had four such games when he was 28.
I don't think there's anyone out there in the sports world who believes that Justin Verlander -- or any other man -- will toss 7 no-hitters as Ryan did in his career. But then, for as many strikeouts and hit-less baseball games that The Ryan Express racked up, there were many games in which there were a lot of men on the base paths. He averaged 120 BB per season, and is the all time leader in free passes, at nearly 2800. Verlander averages 71 BB per, substantially less.
He is, however, a historically slow starter when we talk about monthly performances. In March, April, and May, his career ERA is 3.62, with a 4.75 ERA in April. His middle months are his best (we're seeing that this season, as well), as his June and July combined ERA is 3.16. He struggles the most, it seems, in August and September. A 4.23 ERA is not adequate if he wants to be the best in the game.
Though, to his credit, he's been improving in the final two months of the season for the past two years. Another sign that he is maturing as a pitcher, and perhaps not becoming as intimidated by late-season high pressure games with the division on the line.
Bottom line is this. Justin Verlander is the best pitcher in the league right now. And any team that has the misfortune of facing him in the next few months is going to lose sleep wondering how to solve his 100mph fastball, 87mph change up, and his 79mph curve. All of which he is able to put anywhere he wants to at any time he wants to. In the mean time, his career 3.65 ERA continues to drop slowly, and the fear he puts into hitters every five days is growing rapidly.
Good luck with that, AL Central hitters, I do not envy you.
This video says all that needs to be said on how Cincinnati feels about Jay Bruce.
For Cincinnati Reds RF Jay Bruce, it must be tough having to follow 1B Joey Votto in the lineup night in and night out. Votto is a stud, and the reigning NL MVP.
Actually, it's probably really easy. With Votto on base nearly half the time Jay comes up to bat --Votto's OBP is .444-- there has been many opportunities to drive in runs. And the Reds cleanup hitter has cashed in that lottery ticket many a time this season. He is 3rd in the NL with 17 homers, and 9th with 48 RBI --both stats lead the team--, and he's been a major reason Votto has scored 50 runs already, which places him sixth in the NL.
CF Drew Stubbs is just ahead of him with 52, good enough for fourth in the league. Bruce himself has crossed the plate 46 times, as he rounds out the top 10 list in that category.
I have been following Bruce's career with great intrigue since he went 3-3 with a double, 2 RBI, 2 runs, and 2 walks in his major league debut on May 27, 2008. And I believe he will be among the best players in the game for years to come. He owns a career .261 BA, and may never clear .300 over an entire season. But since the start of the 2010 campaign, he's batting .2807 (above league average) with 42 HR and 118 RBI. Mr. Bruce is on pace to hit 39 over the wall this year and drive in 110, and this will likely be the norm for him. He's going to hit anywhere between .270 and .290, and be a run producing machine. So long as his lineup neighbor is in The Queen City, anyway.
He goes through hot and cold streaks, as most hitters do, and going into play on May 19, he had a .243 BA with 8 HR and 24 RBI. That afternoon against the Pittsburgh Pirates, he went 3-4 with two bombs, and that sent him on a three week tear in which he hit safely in 21 of 23 games, batting .365 with 9 HR and 24 RBI during that time. His overall .342 BA in the month of May to go along with 12 HR and 33 RBI earned him Player of the Month honors in the National League. Bruce is the first Reds player to snag the award since Adam Dunn did it in July of the 2005 season, and his RBI total for the month were the most for the Reds since OF Greg Vaughn knocked in 37 in September of 1999.
By June 11, he had risen his batting average to .295, and all seemed well. Except that over the next five games, he endured the longest hitting drought of his young career, going 0-17 with 7 strikeouts, 4 walks, and only scoring one run. His overall batting average for June is .238, not exactly the way you want to follow up a Player of the Month performance. Still though, he's at .280 on the year, and with the great Joey Votto by his side, he will continue to get opportunities to right himself.
If he has an area he needs to work on, it's in the swing-and-miss department. He's struck out 68 times this season --a 147 pace-- and only walked 30 times. Working with hitting coach Brook Jacoby every day, they'll work on cutting down the strikeouts and help him become a more selective hitter at the plate. And if and when that happens, he may become MVP material, just as Votto has become.
In the field, he isn't very flashy. He doesn't make ridiculous catches that top Baseball Tonight's Web Gems. But he's consistently solid. In his 71 games this year, he's made just three fielding errors, and he's been getting better over his time in the outfield. In 2008, between left, center, and right field, he made 11 errors. In the two plus seasons since then, he's had a total of just eight.
So what are we talking about here? Does anyone believe he will become the Reds next Frank Robinson? As it happens, both Robinson and Bruce were born in Beaumont, Texas. Robinson is second on the Reds all time HR list, with 324, and 9th all time with 586. Any question as to who's first on that list? I think not (it's Johnny Bench, in case you don't know). I'm not saying he will hit 600 home runs over the length of his career, but he will probably wind up near the top of Cincinnati's list.
That remains to be seen, as he is just 24 years young. He has a lot of work to do, even more room to grow, and the will to do it all. Here's to hoping he can help bring back the return of The Big Red Machine.
Before spring training began, there were about a million questions the Arizona Diamondbacks needed to address. And in April, many of those questions were answered.
Most prevalent was that of the bullpen, with the eye-poppingly astonishing ERA of 5.74 last year, something had to be done. So, the only bullpen mainstays to return from last year were Juan Gutierrez and Aaron Heilman.
Gutierrez started out pretty rough. But then he put up 6.2 scoreless innings over six games, which dropped his season ERA to a reasonable 3.50 on May 16. However, the Minnesota Twins and Colorado Rockies touched him up for 4 ER in just a total of a third of an inning, culminating when he threw just 13 pitches in the 6th inning of the first game of a double dip in Denver on May 24, and didn't get anyone out. He has been on the Disabled List with a shoulder issue ever since, and as a result of those two outings, he sports a sub par 5.40 ERA.
Heilman, on the other hand, has struggled all year thus far, and it seems as though he can't stay consistent enough to be trusted on a daily basis. He will look great for three or four outings, then give up 5 ER in a close game and remove all hope for a D-backs comeback. Aaron has pitched well of late, lowering his ERA by over a run and a half --to 7.01-- over his last seven games. That just means we'll be seeing a blunder like he had on May 24 before too long. He followed Joe Paterson --who took over for Gutierrez in the 6th-- and gave up 5 runs in the seventh, taking the game from a very manageable 7-3 defecit (in Colorado, no four run lead is safe) to 12-3, coming to a head when he gave up a frozen rope home run to then struggling outfielder Carlos Gonzalez (433 feet).
The group, as a whole, has been vastly improved over last season, posting a 3.90 cumulative ERA so far. Much of that can be related to the additions of 8th inning specialist David Hernandez and closer J.J. Putz.
Hernandez has been great, holding a 2.73 ERA over the season. If it weren't for a very forgettable night in Pittsburgh against the Pirates, in which he gave up 5 runs --half his season total-- without getting anyone out, that number would be a minuscule 1.63 ERA. But, every game counts, so no hypotheticals here. Since that evening, however, he has posted 5.2 scoreless innings with 5 strikeouts and 2 base on balls.
J.J. started off the year amazingly, converting his first 16 save opportunities with little resistance from opposing hitters. He was even awarded with the Relief Pitcher of the Month Award for May, when he went 11 for 11 in save opportunities, and didn't give up a single earned run (only one run overall). The day he was told of the award, though, he blew his first save as a Diamondback, a game Arizona won on RF Justin Upton's bloop single to right, scoring 3B Willie Bloomquist from third. We'll get to Justin in a minute.
Putz has successfully saved just two of his last five games, and his back is a genuine concern, in my opinion. It's given him problems in the past, and he has been forced to be unavailable for a few games over the past couple of weeks. Going forward, if he cannot continue to be the closer, or lands on the DL, look for Hernandez to step in and close games for Kirk Gibson's club.
Another question was about the offense, and whether or not they could produce enough runs without the departed Mark Reynolds and Adam LaRoche. They needed some young bats to step up, and over the last month, no one has stepped up his game more than Justin Upton.
In a four game stretch between May 19 and May 22, Justin went 0-17 at the plate with two strikeouts and a walk, dropping his season batting average to a dismal .240, with a .318 on base percentage, and really looking lost offensively. Since the very next day --that was the May 24 double header at Colorado--, he has hit .417 with an OBP of .531 (9 doubles, 2 triples, 3 homers, and 15 RBI). He has raised his batting average by .62 points to .302, with a season total of 12 home runs and 38 RBI. He was just named last week's NL Player of the Week.
More than just putting up All-Star worthy numbers, Upton is fast becoming the leader in the clubhouse and on the field. He has numerous go ahead RBIs this season, including four walk off hits. None, though, bigger than his first career game winning HR to salvage the series against the NL West leading San Francisco Giants on June 16.
The offense has been key in turning things around over the past month for the D-backs, and Upton hasn't been the only every day fielder producing big time numbers.
CF Chris Young has hit .309 in the same time frame as Upton, including .318 in June. He leads the team with 14 HR, and is argueably the best fielder at his position.
SS Stephen Drew is hitting .289 since then as well, though he has cooled off considerably since he began the game on June 13 hitting .295 on the year. He's at .274 now, and leads the team in RBI with 39.
Since May 13, when they were 15-22, Arizona has gone 24-12 to move out from the bottom of the division into second place --just a half game back of the Giants. With the recent injury bug to make its way through San Francisco, there's no reason to think that the Diamondbacks can't win the division. They will need to add a player or two to help, however. With the most recent home stand now behind them, the area most needed appears to be the area that has been the most improved early in the campaign: the bullpen. With Sam Demel and Gutierrez still on the DL, and Aaron Heilman just itching to implode on the mound once more, there is little doubt that GM Kevin Towers and Co. will be open to adding an arm to the 'pen sometime in the next 4-5 weeks.
The top of the pitching rotation has been better than expected, with Ian Kennedy (7-2 2.98 ERA 85Ks) and Daniel Hudson (8-5 3.56 ERA 86Ks) providing much needed depth at the Starting Pitcher spot. Both average nearly seven innings per start, and have been dominating everyone of late. With the emergence of Josh Collmenter (4-3 2.09 ERA 39 Ks), who seems to have some staying power, the rotation issues have been somewhat solved, for now.
Some of you may read my football blog (The Red Zone Express), and if you do, I want to thank you from the depths of my heart. This being my first foray into the world of baseball blogging, I hope you've enjoyed reading this, and I implore you to come back from time to time to check out what else I have in store for your eyes. Thank you again, and have a blessed day.
