Sure, it’s easy to say Justin Verlander’s second no-hitter isn’t surprising now that he’s actually thrown another. That being said, it really doesn’t surprise me.
I was at Comerica Park for Verlander’s start against the Chicago White Sox on April 22 and had a funny feeling it could be a special night. The White Sox offense was scuffling and the cold, wet weather surely favored a pitcher of Verlander’s caliber. Carlos Quentin’s fourth inning home run put any thought of a no-hitter to rest but I was struck by how nice is to have a pitcher that puts those kinds of thoughts into my head wearing the olde English D.
JV pitched very well that night and picked up the win, even though he did allow a few hits. Rod Allen took to twitter later that evening with the following:
"For those of you asking, it’s to early to talk CY Young. But I agree JV has one in his future!! He’s that good!!!"
Having gotten that funny no-hit feeling earlier in the day, I offered the following response to Rod:
"@RodAllen12 call me crazy but I thought he had no-hit potential after watching the first couple innings."
Was I crazy to start thinking about the possibility that I would witness a no-hitter that night? No, Verlander has the kind of potential, we had seen it before. Now we’ve seen it again. Rod Allen responded to my tweet via direct message. His response reeked of expectation just over two weeks ago:
Rod may have been surprised another no-hitter came so quickly, but he, and I, were not surprised he did it again.
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