On the flip side, even when Gavin Floyd is wild, he's effectively wild against the Tigers.

On a cold, wet day that seemingly favored power pitchers, Verlander looked to have the standout performance that would finally earn him a win here. He ran fastballs inside on White Sox sluggers and dropped curveballs on the corners for called strikes. On the same day, Floyd no-hit the Tigers into the eighth.

The result was another loss for Verlander on Chicago's South Side. Though the 7-0 decision didn't reflect the pitching duel that controlled this game for seven innings, it nonetheless dropped Verlander to 1-6 for his career against the White Sox and 0-4 at U.S. Cellular Field.

"It's baseball. Things happen," Verlander said with a shrug. "You can't expect to go out and pitch well and get a win every time."

This pitching performance, though, was better than the others he's had here.

For at least the first few innings, Floyd's no-hit bid bore a strong resemblance to Dontrelle Willis' five no-hit innings against the White Sox last Saturday at Comerica Park. Floyd walked four of Detroit's first 12 batters, including rookie leadoff man Clete Thomas twice. Two of those runners were erased on double plays, while Thomas was thrown out at home plate on Gary Sheffield's grounder to third, stymieing Detroit's best scoring threat in the first inning.

After Magglio Ordonez's double play followed Sheffield's leadoff walk in the fourth, Floyd (2-0) settled down to retire 12 straight batters, building excitement into a scattered, rain-soaked crowd.

When Tigers manager Jim Leyland called him effectively wild, he meant it as a compliment. For a Tigers lineup that was starting to settle in, having scored 18 runs over Detroit's last three games, Floyd was the last person they needed to see.

"I thought he had two totally different combinations going today," Leyland said. "He missed the strike zone by a lot on some pitches, and then made absolutely tremendous pitches on the corners. He pitched one great game, obviously -- tremendous. Some pitches missed by quite a bit, and then ... there was that one stretch there in the game he started painting the corner on some guys."

That was the middle-inning stretch, when curveballs dropped into the zone. Miguel Cabrera saw one hit the inside corner for a called third strike to end the fourth. Thomas watched another one in the sixth.

"He [threw] a lot of good breaking balls down with two strikes," Brandon Inge said. "Even if this lineup is cold, it's still a tough lineup. And you've got to give him credit."

Meanwhile, the contact that Tigers hitters did make went for naught. Ordonez sent left fielder Carlos Quentin crashing into the fence to corral his drive with a man on in the first inning. Ivan Rodriguez's opposite-field fly ball in the fifth sent Jermaine Dye to the warning track in right. With the no-hitter watch clearly in effect, Ordonez barely missed a double off the right-field line before striking out for the second out of the seventh.

For much of the game, that was the difference in a White Sox lead. Verlander retired eight of Chicago's first 10 hitters before he made a mistake to Orlando Cabrera, who lined it over the fence in the left-field corner for his first home run in a White Sox uniform.

"My changeup wasn't very good today," Verlander said. "I felt like I found it a little bit later on, but earlier, it wasn't good for me at all. It was up in the zone and didn't move much. It's a bad pitch to righties when it's up in the zone like that. If they just get the head [of the bat] out on it, that happens."

Everything else, however, had movement, and two walks to Paul Konerko were the only other baserunners Verlander allowed until he literally lost his grip on the ball and the game in the eighth.

After Juan Uribe flew out on the first pitch, Verlander issued a walk to Nick Swisher. He had Cabrera in an 0-2 count before losing control on an inside fastball that hit Cabrera on the earflap of his helmet.

At that point, Verlander was ineffectively wild, and he suggested he could feel the elements on the pitches he threw.

"For some reason, the balls got cold and slick," Verlander said. "The weather didn't change. It was the same the whole game. I couldn't feel the ball in the eighth inning. I don't know what happened. ... They'd been a little damp the whole game, but in the eighth, they were cold, too. I know it wasn't like that the rest of the game."

Starting with Swisher's walk, Verlander reached two-strike counts on four straight hitters. All of them reached base safely. Jim Thome didn't take Verlander deep in this game like in others, but he took a 2-2 pitch to right for a single to load the bases. Verlander regrouped to put Konerko in an 0-2 hole, but his next fastball ran too far in and hit him to drive in the second run.

"That was critical," Leyland said.

Leyland had sent pitching coach Chuck Hernandez to the mound after Cabrera was hit, fearing the beaning would rattle Verlander. But with Verlander's pitches still moving, he stuck with his ace in a 2-0 game as red-hot A.J. Pierzynski stepped to the plate with two outs.

"He's my horse," Leyland said of Verlander. "He deserved it. [Pierzynski] got a base hit, but obviously that wasn't the difference in the game. With the game he pitched, he deserved the chance to get him out."

Said Verlander: "I don't want to give up that ball. Those are my runs. That's my hitter. I knew my pitch count wasn't excessively high. I wanted it."

Pierzynski's single plated two runs. Two more singles, a walk and three runs followed off Francis Beltran, but the game essentially was out of reach. And Verlander was on his way to his first three-game losing streak and an 0-3 start. Verlander is confident he's been better.

"The numbers don't show it," Verlander said. "That's OK by me, because if I keep pitching the way I have been, things will turn around. It's the natural cycle of things."

Floyd's second win over Detroit in eight days, meanwhile, continued his emergence as a Tigers nemesis. The 25-year-old right-hander owns three wins in 12 starts since joining the White Sox before last season. All have come against Detroit. He also had two no-decisions against the Tigers last year in which he allowed two runs in 13 innings.