Verlander no-hits Brewers

Prince Fielder’s return to Detroit got spoiled.
The Tigers’ Justin Verlander pitched his first career no-hitter Monday evening, besting the Brewers and Jeff Suppan 4-0. Verlander also had a career high 12 strikeouts–6 by Counsellino (actually 2 by leadoff hitter and third baseman Craig Counsell and 4 by #2 hitter and second baseman Tony Graffanino). Both Counsell and Graffanino fanned to start the ninth, both getting no help from home plate umpire Ron Kulpa–Counsell’s second strike appeared to be at least 3″ off the plate, prompting the usually calm Counsell to bark a few words at Kulpa; Graffanino’s first strike also appeared off the plate (although not as much as Counsell’s), and Graffanino could be seen mouthing, “You thought that was a strike?” No matter–neither would have gotten a hit regardless…more disturbing is that both seemed to get rattled after the bad call and both seemed to flail at anything after that.
Also disturbing was that skipper Ned Yost almost seem to give up as well, leaving Jeff Suppan in to start the 7th and give up another run…Suppan had just given up his 2nd and 3rd runs of the evening in the 6th, and was kept in for the 7th–after getting I-Rod to ground out, Soup proceeded to get tagged for three consecutive hits–a double by Craig Monroe, followed by singles by Brandon Inge and Neifi Perez. Jose Capellan spelled Soup, and kept the Tigers off the board for the remaining 1.67 IP.
The other story Monday night was the Comerica Park was invaded by “about 2 dozen” seagulls, according to Bob Uecker and Jim Powell…apparently, a moth infestation near the park migrated to be by the stadium lights, and the seagulls came by to eradicate the problem…no word yet if the grounds crew will need to work overtime to clean up the guano.