Justin Verlander, Second No-Hitter of 2011 May 8, 2011
Posted by tomflesher in Baseball.Tags: Bleacher Report, Justin Verlander, no-hitters, poisson distribution, Ricky Romero
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Yesterday, the Tigers’ Justin Verlander threw 2011’s second no-hitter, blanking the Blue Jays on a phenomenal 9-0 win. Verlander’s line was 9.0 innings pitched, 0 runs, 0 hits, 0 errors, 1 walk, 4 strikeouts, 108 pitches (74 for strikes) and a game score of 90. The Jays’ Ricky Romero took the loss.
It was Verlander’s second no-hitter. Although Bleacher Report’s Josh Rosenblat suggests that this is the start of a second “Year of the Pitcher,” I would be careful about making that conclusion. Remember that no-hitters are probably poisson distributed, so we should expect clumps of them. If pitchers keep it up, I’ll start crunching more numbers, but for now it’s just an odd coincidence.