MLB
For the 300th time in baseball history there was a no-hitter thrown. Mike Fiers of the Oakland A’s accomplished the feat last night against the Cincinnati Reds. This is the second time in Fiers career that he’s thrown a no-hitter. Fiers no-hit the Los Angeles Dodgers when he was a member of the Houston Astros in 2015.
Fiers was making his ninth start of the season last night and was having a rough start to his season. Coming into last night Fiers was 2-3 with an ERA of 6.81. It makes perfect sense that he goes out and no-hit one of if not the hottest hitting team in baseball. Baseball is an odd game.
Adding to the oddity of this game is the fact that it almost wasn’t played at all last night. There was an issue with some of the lights in leftfield. There was a meeting at home plate with the umpires, each teams manager and general manager with Major League Baseball on stand by trying to decide if the game would be played. After an hour and 38 minute delay the game was ready to start. Apparently this game was only 15 minutes away from being cancelled.
Once the game started it took Fiers 2 hours and 25 minutes to throw his second no-hitter. Fiers is the 35th pitcher in baseball history to have thrown multiple no-hitters. He is also one of just five active pitchers who have pulled this off. Fiers is also the 8th pitcher in baseball history to throw his two no-hitters with different teams.
Interestingly, you have to wonder how many managers would’ve left their pitcher in as Fiers threw 131 pitches last night. With the way pitchers are handled in today’s game once they hit that 100 pitch mark the bullpen is up and warming, but A’s manager Bob Melvin stayed with Fiers and allowed him to get his no-hitter.
Fiers had thrown 109 pitches through 7 innings and it was reported that Melvin told him if he allowed anyone to get on base he’d be coming out of the game. The A’s did have someone warming up in the bullpen the final two innings of the game.
Melvin was quoted as saying “I broke every rule in the book”. “It was no fun for me once he got past 120 pitches; I promise you that, but he deserved it”.
Now it a 1-0 game going into the bottom of the 7th, so Melvin wasn’t only managing a no-hitter he was trying to win a tight game.
Jurickson Profar gave Fiers and the A’s an extra run to work with when he hit a solo home run in the bottom of the 7th inning to make it a 2-0 game.
Now as with any no-hitter there seems to be a defensive play that stands out and the A’s made two last night both in the top of the 6th inning.
Joey Votto looked like he not only would break up the no-hitter, but the shutout as well, when he connected on a deep flyball to centerfield. Ramon Laureano went back to the fence timed his jump just right and caught what looked like it was going to be a Votto home rune to keep the no-hitter in going. Profar also added defensive gem to preserve the no-hitter. Kyle Farmer hit a shallow flyball to rightfield that looked like it was going to drop between A’s fielders, but Profar made a diving catch to rob Farmer of a hit.
The only what you might call controversial call happened in the top of the 4th inning. Jesse Winker hit a ball that went off of Matt Chapman’s glove. It would’ve been a tough play for Chapman to make and the call could’ve went either way. It took the official scorer quite a while to make a ruling, but in the end they called it an error on Chapman. It may have been a tough error to assign, but Chapman is a top defender and it was a play that he normally makes.
With the win Fiers improves his record on the season to 3-3. He struck out 6 and walked 2 and his ERA came down to 5.48.
Another rarity for pitchers these days is the complete game, but there was one of those last night.
Hyun-Jin Ryu of the Los Angeles Dodgers threw a complete game against the Atlanta Braves last night. Ryu gave up 4 hits while striking out 6 and he threw just 94 pitches in his complete game.
The Dodgers cruised to a 9-0 victory over the Braves as Justin Turner backed Ryu’s effort by hitting three home runs and driving in 6 of the Dodgers 9 runs.
This was Ryu’s 3rd career complete game, but it’s his first since 2013 his rookie season when he had 2. With the win Ryu improved his record to 4-1 on the season. He also lowered his ERA to 2.03.
Coming into last night, there had been just 6 complete games in baseball this season. So to have two in one night is special and then add the fact that one of them was a no-hitter and it was a great baseball night.
NHL
There is just one spot left in the NHL Conference finals and it will take a Game 7 tonight to decide who gets that spot.
The Boston Bruins and the Carolina Hurricanes have claimed their spots in the Eastern Conference finals and that series starts tomorrow night. The St. Louis Blues grabbed one of the spots in the Western Conference finals with a 2-1 double overtime win over the Dallas Stars last night.
So there’s only room for one more team. Who will it be?
The San Jose Sharks are hosting the Colorado Avalanche tonight to see who claims that last Conference finals spot. No team has won two games in a row in this series, does that mean that Colorado is on trouble since they won Game 6? It does look as though San Jose might have a slight advantage coming into this game but as we know with the way these NHL playoffs have went; you just never know.
Who do you have winning Game 7 tonight, the Sharks or the Avalanche?
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