OAKLAND, Calif. — I forgot who it was that said it, but baseball reporting is like a box of chocolates: You never know what you’re going to get.
On Friday night at the Oakland Coliseum, we got dueling no-hitters through five innings — Detroit Tigers left-hander Blaine Hardy and Oakland Athletics lefty Brett Anderson — and a scoreless game into the 13th inning, which ended when A's rookie Ramon Laureano hit a walk-off double in his big-league debut.
But sometimes, you're really surprised by what you get, such as the usually-powerless Tigers hitting four home runs off former ace Justin Verlander in a win over the defending World Series-champion Houston Astros just before the All-Star break, or Saturday afternoon, when I was asked upon entering the Tigers clubhouse if I had taken my beating yet.