ANNIVERSARY: 2007 April 18 Mark Buehrle No-Hitter

Little bit early on this Anniversary posting but we have a Phillies card to get to as well.

 2008 Topps Finest Moments #FM-MB Mark Buehrle

On April 18 2007 Mark Buehrle posted his first of his two career No-Hitters. The victims of the Chicago White Sox 6-0 victory were the Texas Rangers. Batters in the Rangers potent lineup that day included Past & future Phillies Kenny Lofton and Michael Young as well as several other luminaries: Ian Kinsler, Sammy Sosa, Mark Teixeira and Nelson Cruz (Who batted 8th!).

Jeraine Dye provided the bulk of the offense for the White Sox with a grand slam off of Phillies Alum, Kevin Millwood. Jim Thome picked up the other 2 RBI on a pair of Home Runs one off of Millwood the other off of current Phillies reliever Joaquin Benoit. 

Flip

2008 Topps Finest Moments #FM-MB Mark Buehrle (b-side)

The back of the card does a good job of succinctly summarizing Buehrle's big day. His other no-hitter versus the Tampa Bay Rays in 2009 was a perfect game, therefore he pitched to the minimum at least twice.

Buehrle's battery-mate for the no-hitter was AJ Pierzynski. AJ did not call Buehrle's perfect game but he was the backstop for a different White Sox perfecto authored by Phil Humber.

The plate umpire for both of the no-hitters was Eric Cooper.

Sources and Links
No-Hitter Index
Game Dated Cards
Baseball-Reference
Baseball Almanac

Shut Up Stats: H&A Splits Josh Johnson & Mark Buehrle

2006 Fleer #191 Josh Johnson

The potential Blue Jays Marlins trade appears pretty lopsided for the immediate future - but maybe not.  Check out the Home and Away splits for the Marlins top 2 pitchers.

Josh Johnson 2012	Home	Away
ERA	2.96	4.94
BAA	0.239	0.27
HR	5	9
IP	109.1	82
WHIP	1.162	1.439
Mark Buehrle 2012	Home	Away
ERA	3.13	4.45
BAA	0.246	0.272
HR	10	16
IP	109.1	93
WHIP	1.079	1.28

Also worth Noting that Josh Johsnon had declining pitching WAR numbers the last 2 seasons after posting 6+ WAR in 2009 and 2010.  Buehrle has had Declining WAR last 3 seasons and declining IPs last four seasons. 

Phungo's Two Cents - 2010 Upper Deck

I am going to dedicate way to much time to this post - I found little to like about my first sample of 2010 Upper Deck Cards.

Full disclosure - if your here and have read much of my card specific commentary, it is likely evident that I am at Topps guy. Topps cards simply have history on their side - these are the cards of my youth and I enjoy that sense of history. So anything I follow up with here is likely tainted somewhat my a personal bias.

Ok now that I got that out of the way....

I had a fear that ones Topps got the exclusive MLB license that they would mail in the 2010 set. I think it is far more accurate to say that Upper Deck was the brand that mailed it in. I found 2010 UD boring and uninspired. I don't going with the Green Motif - which I have dubbed Green Eggs and Spam. if you know your not going to be able to use logos, why not use the team colors or at least the crayola crayons 8 base colors. Perhaps this would have been a violation of the Topps Exclusivity agreement - I don't know.

It's a Hit - Camden Yards Card


I don't really like the stadium cards, and I will get to that later, but this one here is a dandy.

Foul - First Card


Thumbs down on my first UD card of 2010 just because he is a member of the team that beat Phils in the World Series. The card is ok, the opinion is purely personal.

Mixed - Phillies

I picked up 3 Phils cards which is better then the 1 card I got out of 5 topps packs. A couple of set up guys and Jayson Werth. All three were members of the 2008 World Championship Phillies squad. I really like the Romero photo and consider it one of the better ones in the pack.

Foul - Tape Measures


These cards from this post are all from a pair of rack packs ($10.58 including PA Sales Tax). The UD Racks seemed to always have a lame insert. These cards are ok, but why not have the city name of the players? I mean they went to the trouble of naming the pitcher and the hand he throws with. Magglio Hit hist dinger on the Road, pictured in a Home Jersey. Votto hit his at home, here he is featured in a roadie. That to me is laziness on UDs part - Insert cards are supposed to be special treat them as if they are. The other two are probably 3rd jersey's so I am not sure on those two.

Mixed - Biography
I actually don't mind these - The two I got were probably the 2 furthest apart magnitude wise. Buerhle's card commemorates a great event while the other card is a footnote for a team that had little to cheer about last year. My biggest issue is that I have seen a lot of folks that have praised this set, yet 2008 Topps Year In Review was universally panned - it's the same stinkin set.

Home Run - Catcher Cards

UD knew that catchers in gear would not have many logos in view and they took good advantage of the situation. There were several good action shots of catchers in the 2 rack packs I opened.

Foul - b-sides


As usual UD left a good bit of exciting white space on the back of their cards.

Foul - Hidden Ball Trick?

I just got done praising the Catcher cards above then UD does this to me. The profile photo is in the way of the action in both catcher cards above and obscures the ball in the Inge shot. This is similar to something that handicapped 08 Topps when all the players had to "duck" out from under the Topps Logo.

miscellaneous nits

I don't like the cropping on the Samardzija. That may be nit-picking though. The stadium cards are generally boring. The under construction Target Field may be top of the list. And finally in general I do not like the Two player Team Checklist cards. I have almost always liked them before with only one player. maybe these will grow on me, but right now they are a thumbs down.