Detroit was in town to play the Yankees for a three game weekend series. When the series opened up, Alex Rodriguez was sitting at 2,999 lifetime hits. Starting for the Tigers on Friday night was Justin Verlander, a guy who Alex Rodriguez has had good success against in his career. So with two outs and nobody on in the first inning, A-Rod came to the plate. On the first pitch Justin Verlander threw, this happened:
It was the 13th homer of the year for Rodriguez, but just as important it was the 3,000 hit of his career. He becomes just the 29th player in the history of the majors to collect 3,000 hits and just the 3rd, joining Derek Jeter and Wade Boggs, to pick up his 3,000th hit on a home run. Of the 29 men who have picked up 3,000 hits in the Majors, Pete Rose, Derek Jeter (but that will change in less than five years) A-Rod and Rafael Palmeiro are the only ones not in the Baseball hall of fame. Jeter will no doubt get in when he comes on the ballot. Palmerio is a maybe, with the steroids and all I highly doubt he is going to get in. Pete Rose isn't in because of betting on baseball. That just leaves Alex Rodriguez in question.
A lot of people will jump on the bandwagon that because of the steroids, Alex shouldn't have the 3,000 hit milestone. I can't see that happening here. When it comes to the home run argument, then yes you have a case to stand on. See when it comes to taking steroids, that only really helps with power hitting. I highly doubt that steroids can help you actually hit the baseball. Being able to hit a baseball is the hardest single skill in all the sports world to be able to do. You need to have great hand-eye coordination in order to be able to hit a baseball moving somewhere around 90 miles an hour in about sixty feet. You need to be able to get your hands and eyes in sync to be able to get a bat on the ball. Steroids can help with the distance, but not really with making contact, at least I don't think so. So you can say what you want about steroids and whether or not Alex took them, that's totally up to you. He still had to be able to hit a baseball 3,000 times, which is a very hard thing to do. Alex wasn't the only one to have a special weekend this past weekend in the Majors.
Then the day before father's day, he would get his revenge. Scherzer was on his game against the Pirates, throwing 106 pitches and striking out six while walking nobody. It should have been a perfect game, but the perfecto was broken up by this:
I mean come on Tabata, you could have gotten out of the way of the pitch. Its's kind of clear that he turned right into the pitch and it cost Scherzer the Perfect Game. That's another argument for another day. Scherzer still kept his composure, getting the next hitter, Josh Harrison, to fly out to left field to complete the No-Hitter.
What makes this no hitter impressive is that Scherzer did it against a hot Pirates team. Pittsburgh came into that game having won 21 of their previous 27 games but that didn't bother Scherzer. He struck out 10 and allowed just 11 balls to be hit out of the infield. Between this start and his last start against the Brewers, Scherzer retired 54 of the 57 batters he faced in the two baseball games. So far, it's safe to say that Max Scherzer has been worth every penny, at least to this point, of the $210 million he's being paid.
So congratulations to Max Scherzer on throwing a no-hitter and to Alex Rodriguez on picking up career hit #3,000!
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