It took the Rays 2038 games to make it happen, but they finally notched their first no-hitter since the team’s inaugural season in 1998. That’s right, it’s been 2038 games, the team has had three no-hitters completed against them within the past two seasons, and they finally made it happen in a year where no-hits are almost becoming commonplace.
Sportscasters love calling 2010 the “Year of the Pitcher”, despite the fact that the real YotP, 1968, was such a monumental year that the rules had to be changed to favor the batter. No one is threatening to throw a Gibson-esque 1.12, but five no-hitters in one year certainly makes you think. In fact, it’s making everyone think that we’ve finally finished with the steroid problem in baseball and hitters are regressing. Really, the YotP signifies the year that we returned back to pre-steroid baseball and the hitters have yet to catch up.
Back to Garza: his no-hitter was one walk shy of a perfect game against an ailing Tigers team that is missing a few key bats. It was also a no-hitter for both teams for six innings until the Rays broke it way open. After Scherzer loaded up the bases, Matt Joyce belted his second grand slam of the year to push the Rays up 4-0. Carl Crawford later added in an insurance run with his own long blast into center field to bring the Rays up to 5-0 and give Garza extra piece of mind.
That’s not even the best part. No, the best part is that my brother, Dave, WAS THERE! He goes to Rays games every so often after work and, thanks to scheduling issues, he decided to go a day early to last night’s game instead of going tomorrow. Dave’s not the biggest baseball fan (at one point he had to ask his co-worker if no-hitters were rare), but he was super lucky to get to see one of baseball’s greatest pitching achievements and Rays history last night. I’m so happy/jealous for/of him!
Congratulations to Matt Garza on a game well pitched.
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