It was always a frustration for me during the M's tiny good stretch. Freddy Garcia or Moyer or someone would be "cruising" through an extremely well-pitched game, but since the Yankees were always giving you tough ABs, it seemed like many times they would just wait you out until the little poked hole in the dam would come.
You'd analyze the game the next day talking about what a tough-luck outing Garcia had and that peripherally he might have been better than Wells or Cone that day. The Yankees were tough as nails with that approach.
I was not able to watch the Verlander game on Wednesday, but as I checked in a few times I felt that the M's could be the kind of team that the Yankees were offensively then. They can have games where they just do not give away ABs. Sure, there will be games where a guy throwing the way Verlander was will finish the job, but with a long lineup I like their chances to reduce those frequencies.
Beating a team whose pitchers have no-hit stuff that day are huge wins. Kudos to the org for ingraining the process.