1. In today’s Post, I wrote this column about how the AL Central White Sox saw a lot of Justin Verlander in Matt Harvey.

Harvey got just about as close to a perfect game as possible without actually recording one. Alex Rios got the only hit with two outs in the seventh inning. Rios beat out a grounder to the shortstop-third base hole on a bang-bang play at first. Had Ruben Tejada’s throw arrived a fraction of a second earlier …

But this hardly diminished how dominant Harvey was. The following are how many balls he threw in each of the nine innings: 3, 3, 3, 2, 3, 2, 4, 1, 7. In other words, in just two of nine whole innings did Harvey throw enough balls to walk a batter.

That was what was most special about him Tuesday – he simply had command of his entire arsenal. According to the data compiled at brooksbaseball.net, Harvey threw 44 of 59 fastballs for strikes, nine of 14 changeups, 14 of 20 sliders and nine of 11 curves.

I ran into Joe McEwing in the White Sox clubhouse after the game and the first word he offered was “wow.” Yes, the Chicago lineup is not very good at full strength, something far worse when last night it was without Gordon Beckham, Dayan Viciedo and Paul Konerko.

Still, Harvey’s stuff was overpowering. And that pretty much speaks for his entire season. I mention in the column that Harvey – if the dates work – is on track to start the All-Star Game. Not because it is at Citi Field and that would be the fan friendly thing to do. But because he has clearly been the best pitcher in the league.

Consider this in closing: .As a group, NL pitchers are hitting .131 with a .163 on-base percentage and a .178 slugging percentage for a .361 OPS. In Harvey’s seven starts this year, opponents are .133/.191/.188/.379. That’s right, Harvey has turned the National League into a bunch of pitchers.

2. I should begin by saying that I am glad you are still so passionate about the games and that you still attend them. But I have to say I am not completely sure why.

More and more, the act of going to a game due to expense, hassle, atmosphere, time of day, etc. feels like it has become too arduous. It feels as if there is these cocktail of factors making the experience worse, not better, and mainly that organizations are pushing you to see how far they could go to disenfranchise you. Consider personal seat licenses and later start times, etc.

And then you see this story in the Washington Post and, again, I wonder when there will be, if not a revolt, a tipping point in which people with self-respect say enough.

The Detroit at Washington game was rained out Tuesday night and the Nationals announced a new policy whereby fans holding tickets could only use them for Thursday’s makeup game – a 4:05 start on a weekday. They said no exchanges or refunds would be issued, except for those on a season-ticket plan. The previous policy, which was near universal, was that ticket holders could exchange their ticket for a future game, as long as there was availability.

Now you are telling fans that buy a ticket for a specific date that they better be available for another date if there is a postponement or else they will lose their money. That is one horrible policy, one that should drive fans away. And one that should get Bud Selig up on his bully pulpit. He hates to meddle with individual club business. But if this doesn’t fit into the best interest of the game – a policy designed to disenfranchise fans, tell them essentially tough luck – then what is?

3. With the playing of White Sox at Mets, there are now just eight location-specific Interleague matchups that have yet to take place since the advent of interleague play in 1997. But by the end of this season, there will be just one – San Diego at Toronto.

Here are the other seven with the scheduled date of this year’s series in parantheses: Minnesota at Atlanta (May 20-22), Dodgers at Yankees (June 18-19), Texas at St. Louis (June 21-23), Atlanta at Kansas City (June 25-26), Cubs at Oakland (July 2-4), St. Louis at the Angels (July 2-4) and Tampa at the Dodgers (Aug. 9-11).