A momentary lapse

Fortunately for baseball fans, last night's no-hitter tossed by the Tigers' Justin Verlander gave sports commentators something to talk about besides: a) all the disappointments surrounding the NBA playoffs, and b) the finale of "The Sopranos," whatever that has to do with sports.

Verlander turned in a domineering 12-strikeout performance in which he's reported to have registered 102 mph on his fastball in the ninth inning. See, starters can be effective past the sixth! Verlander's masterpiece came at the expense of the heavy-hitting Milwaukee Brewers, who still look like a shoo-in for the National League "Comedy" Central title despite a long stretch of mediocrity following a hot start.

If you're wondering whether having a no-hitter pitched against a team dooms it for the rest of the season, history shows several teams have experienced a similar momentary lapse at the plate before going on to qualify for the postseason and/or win championships:

• Atlanta Braves, victims of perfect game by Arizona's Randy Johnson, May 18, 2004. The Braves still were in their long streak of winning the divisional title every year. Johnson's Diamondback's, though, were in a transition year and compiled a 51-111 record, the worst in the National League since the days of Casey Stengel's Amazin' Mets.

• New York Yankees no-hit by six Houston pitchers, June 11, 2003. The Yankees made it to the World Series that year, losing to Florida. Astros starter Roy Oswalt left after the first inning with a groin injury, then Pete Munro, Kirk Saarloos, Brad Lidge, Octavio Dotel and Billy Wagner combined on the no-hitter that featured the most pitchers.

• Arizona Diamondbacks no-hit by St. Louis' Jose Jiminez, June 25, 1999. The D-Backs won 100 games and the NL West title in their second year of existence. Jimenez finished the year 5-14 for the Cardinals. Go figure.

• San Francisco Giants no-hit by Florida's Kevin Brown, June 10, 1997. The Giants won the NL West, but Florida outdid them by winning the World Series. Barry Bonds went 0-for-3; Brown took a perfect game into the eighth before hitting Marvin Benard, the only Giant to reach base.

• Houston Astros no-hit by the Pirates' Francisco Cordova (9 innings) and Ricardo Rincon (1 inning), July 12, 1997. The Astros won the NL Central, finishing five games ahead of the surprising second-place Pirates. Mark Smith hit a three-run home run in the bottom of the 10th off John Hudek in one of the few baseball highlights to occur in Pittsburgh in the past 15 years.

• Oakland Athletics no-hit by the Rangers' Nolan Ryan, June 11, 1990. The A's won 103 games and swept the Red Sox in the playoffs (that's the year Roger Clemens got tossed out in the second inning of the fourth game) before the Reds swept Oakland in the Series, to everyone's surprise, even to this day. This no-hitter was the sixth of Ryan's seven, and he was 43 at the time, a record for the oldest author of a no-hitter until he did it again the following season.

• Los Angeles Dodgers, victims of perfect game by Cincinnati's Tom Browning, Sept. 16, 1988. This was the year of Orel Hershisher's pitching heroics and a hobbled Kirk Gibson hitting his epic home run to win the first game of the World Series, which the Dodgers went on to win in five games. Even more than his perfecto, Browning is known by baseball historians as the only pitcher in more than half a century to win 20 games as a rookie, in 1985.

• California Angels, no-hit by Joe Cowley of the White Sox, Sept. 19, 1986. Three weeks later, the Angels came within one out of advancing to the World Series for the first time; I remember telling that to my 3-year-old son, as if he had a clue, as we watched on television. Then Dave Henderson took Donnie Moore (RIP) deep, much to the eventual chagrin of Bill Buckner. As for Cowley, he was traded to the Phillies after the season and pitched himself out of the majors within a month.

• Chicago White Sox no-hit by Oakland's Mike Warren, Sept. 29, 1983. The Sox were in playoff mode, a few days away from finishing a full 20 games ahead of the second-place Royals in the AL West. Nevertheless, most of Chicago's regular lineup faced Warren, who was making just his ninth major-league start. The no-hitter was one of Warren's nine major-league victories.

• Los Angeles Dodgers no-hit by Houston's Nolan Ryan, Sept. 26, 1981. Ryan's only National League no-hitter came a month and two days before the Dodgers beat the Yankees in the World Series.

• Philadelphia Phillies no-hit by St. Louis' Bob Forsch, April 16, 1978. This is the only no-hitter I've watched in its entirety on television. But I still contend that Garry Maddox's hard grounder to Ken Reitz should have been ruled an infield hit, not an error. At any rate, the Phillies were on their way to winning their third NL East title in three years, and Forsch's brother Ken would join him the following year as the only siblings to pitch no-hitters.

• Oakland Athletics no-hit by Cleveland's Dick Bosman, July 19, 1974. The A's were on their way to their amazing three-year streak of World Series winners. Bosman, an American League journeyman, wound up in Oakland the following season and pitched very well down the stretch as the A's won their last divisional title before Charlie Finley broke up the dynasty.

• Oakland Athletics no-hit by Texas' Jim Bibby, July 30, 1973. Despite winning three straight World Series, the A's weren't an extraordinarily heavy-hitting team, with the exception of Reggie Jackson.

• Pittsburgh Pirates no-hit by St. Louis' Bob Gibson, Aug. 14, 1971. Roberto Clemente didn't play, but his Hall of Fame teammate, Willie Stargell, struck out three times against the Cardinals' immortal pitcher. The Pirates regrouped to beat the Orioles in the World Series.

• Minnesota Twins no-hit by Oakland's Vida Blue, Sept. 21, 1970. Blue's gem came in just his eighth major-league start, at age 21, the year before he really burst onto the scene by posting a 17-2 record prior to the '71 All-Star Game. He beat one of the league's better-hitting teams, which was on its way to winning the AL West for the second straight season. The losing pitcher was Jim Perry, who won the American League Cy Young Award in 1970.

• New York Mets no-hit by Pittsburgh's Bob Moose, Sept. 20, 1969. This was the year of the miracle, when the Mets suddenly went from baseball's laughingstocks to World Series champions. The success had much more to do with New York's pitching staff than the team's prowess at the plate. Moose, who pitched for his hometown team, died in a traffic accident on Oct. 9, 1976, his 29th birthday.

• Atlanta Braves no-hit by the Cubs' Ken Holtzman, Aug. 19, 1969. Before the Braves became Ted Turner's lovable losers, they won the first-ever National League West title. And before Holtzman gained fame as a hot-hitting pitcher in the World Series for the A's, he pitched a pair of no-hitter for Chicago. This was the first. He later was traded for Rick Monday, the first player taken in the first-ever amateur draft in 1965.

• St. Louis Cardinals no-hit by San Francisco's Gaylord Perry, Sept. 17, 1968. It's not known how much spit was on the balls Perry threw past the Cardinals. St. Louis' Ray Washburn returned the favor the next day by no-hitting the Giants, the first time pitchers on opposing teams performed the feat in consecutive games. The Cards went on to lose the World Series to Detroit despite Bob Gibson striking out 35 Tigers in three games, a Series record that is likely to stand for the ages.

• New York Yankees no-hit by Baltimore's Hoyt Wilhelm, Sept. 20, 1958. The Yankees already had clinched their 11th American League pennant in 12 years when they fell victim to Wilhelm's knuckleball. His mound opponent happened to be Don Larsen (we'll get to him shortly). For Wilhelm, the no-hitter might have saved his career. At age 35, he'd started the year 2-7 with Cleveland and was 0-3 for the Orioles after they claimed him off waivers. After the stellar start vs. New York, the O's decided to make Wilhelm a full-time starter in '59, and he responded by winning 15 games and leading the American League in earned run average. Eventually he returned to the bullpen and pitched until he was 49, and he later became the first pitcher who primarily was a reliever to make the Hall of Fame.

• Brooklyn Dodgers, victims of perfect game by the Yankees' Don Larsen, Oct. 8, 1956. The Dodgers went on to lose the World Series, but this was the year they won their final National League pennant while in Brooklyn. Larsen retired with an 81-91 career record, but his Series masterpiece drew him Hall of Fame votes for years.

• New York Yankees no-hit by Detroit's Virgil Trucks, Aug. 25, 1952. The Yankees were on their way to winning the fourth of five consecutive world championships. Trucks was on his way to a 5-19 record in '52, even though this was his second no-hitter of the year.

• Cincinnati Reds no-hit by Brooklyn's James "Tex" Carleton, April 30, 1940. The Reds won the previous year's NL pennant and were on their way to winning the '40 Series, their last championship until the Big Red Machine. Carleton, whom the Dodgers had rescued from the minors prior to the season, posted a 6-6 record to give him an even 100 career wins before disappearing from the majors.

• Chicago White Sox no-hit by Ernie Koob and Bob Groom of the St. Louis Browns, May 5 and 6 (second game), 1917. The Sox won the World Series that year, then waited 88 years to do it again. The Browns ended finishing 57-97, barely edged out of the basement by Philadelphia. Yet for two days in May, the Browns looked like world beaters against the eventual champs. Neither of the no-hit pitchers was anything special: Koob ended up going 6-14 and Groom, 8-19, both in their next-to-last seasons. Groom apparently wasn't a bad pitcher, but played for some horrible teams. For example, as a rookie in 1909, he lost 26 games for Washington with a 2.87 earned run average. Talk about a lack of support, even for the Dead Ball era!

• Boston Beaneaters no-hit by Baltimore's James "Jay" Hughes, April 22, 1898, and Philadelphia's Francis "Red" Donahue, July 8, 1898. The Beaneaters (yes, that's what they were called) posted a .290 team batting average and scored 872 runs in 152 games on the way to the National League pennant, so the two no-hitters against them must have come as something of a surprise. Donahue was a decent hurler who had been rescued from the vestiges of Chris von der Ahe's once-mighty St. Louis Browns; Red had lost 35 games for the Browns in '97. Hughes was a very successful pitcher, compiling an 83-41 record in four seasons before returning to play ball in his native California. One of the batters in Boston's lineup, catcher Marty Bergen, wrote a tragic chapter in baseball history on Jan. 20, 1900, when he killed his wife and two children with an ax, then cut his own throat with a razor.

• Providence Grays no-hit by Larry Corcoran of the Chicago White Stockings, June 27, 1884. This was the year Charles "Ol' Hoss" Radbourne won either 59 or 60 games for the Grays, depending on the source, then defeated the original New York Mets three straight games in the first "World's Series." But the spotlight shone solely on Corcoran in late June, when he became the first pitcher to toss three career no-hitters. Corcoran, just 24, had racked up 170 victories in his first five seasons, but in those days pitchers were overworked and tended to burn out early. He posted just seven more victories after 1884 and died at 32, forgotten except for the troika of no-hitters.