Johan Santana celebrates after striking out David Freese (Photo Ray Stubblebine/Reuters)
“A pitcher’s got to be good and he’s got to be lucky to get a no hit game.” Cy Young
The New York Mets ended a 50 year drought as Johan Santana no-hit the St. Louis Cardinals tonight in New York. It was the longest that a team had gone in MLB history without a no-hitter and leaves the San Diego Padres as the only team in the Majors with 43 years without a no-hitter.
Santana threw 134 pitches as the Mets shut-out the Cardinals by a score of 8-0. After going down 3 balls and no strikes to David Freese Santana came back to strike out the Cardinal’s slugger to cinch to no-hitter. Santana joined Phillip Humber of the White Sox and Jared Weaver of the Angels to pitch the 3rd no-hitter of this still young season. For Santana and the Mets it was a cause for celebration. The Mets are not strangers to having good pitchers on their staff but despite this and having won two World Series titles but had never had one of their own pitchers whose ranks include David Cone, Greg Maddux and Tom Seaver ever pitch a no-hitter as a Met.
Santana a three time All-Star and two time AL Cy Young Award Winner has 136 career wins since entering the Majors with the Minnesota Twins in 2000. Santana had missed the entire 2011 season after having surgery to repair a tear of the anterior capsule in his pitching shoulder. No pitcher had ever returned from that type of surgery and Santana entered the season just hoping to return to his pre-surgery form. After the game Santana said “Coming into this season, I was just hoping to come back and stay healthy and help this team….” Manager Terry Collins had planned on limiting Santana to 110 pitches but in the 8th inning Santana let his manager know that he “felt good.” Collins left his starter who had thrown a shut-out in his last outing against the Padres in the game. Santana recounted the conversation:
“He came right next to me and he just told me that I was his hero. At that point, I told him, ‘Listen, I’m just going to try to go out there and do my job and try to go as deep as I could in the game.’ And tonight, he was not going to take me out of the game — no chance.”
As in any no-hitter it seemed that the God of Baseball was with the pitcher. Sandy Koufax once said “You’ve got to be lucky, but if you have good stuff, it’s easier to be lucky” and such was the case with Santana this first day of June. In the 7th inning Santana’s effort was saved when Mike Baxter made a dramatic catch of a Yadier Molina fly ball on the warning track in which he was injured and had to leave the game. He was also aided by a foul call of a ball hit by Carlos Beltran down the 3rd Base line which 3rd Base Umpire Adrian Johnson ruled foul but which the replay appeared to show as a fair ball when it crossed over the bag.
The no-hitter equals the number pitched in 2011. It is possible that there could be a record number of no-hitters as pitching has again become dominant in the Major Leagues. We will have to see how that works out but as a fan of great pitching and baseball drama I wouldn’t mind seeing a couple of more this season.
Peace
Padre Steve+
The Inglorius Padre Steve's World 