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More than anything else sports wise I’m a baseball fan even though I’m not watching games this season because of the lockout and the season starting late. Now, I’m still participating in my fantasy baseball leagues and I try to find the highlights and read the box scores to keep up with what is going on I’m just not watching the games themselves, but I’m still a fan and always will be.

Believe it or not I can actually remember when teams had four-man starting rotation. Now there are teams that try and use six starting pitchers in a rotation. They’ll tell you it’s too protect guys from injuries, but in most cases it’s that teams just can’t develop quality starting pitching, so they limit their starters as much as they can to hide them. Don’t believe the sales pitch on a starting pitcher not being able to go through a line up three times. If you know anything about baseball you know that a good pitcher can face batters’ multiple times and still come out ahead in that match up.

This actually leads me to last night. The New York Mets pitched the second no-hitter in team history as they beat the Philadelphia Phillies 3-0, but they needed five pitchers to throw that no-hitter. Now if you’re a Mets fan I’m sure you don’t care how many pitchers they used and all you care about is that they threw a no-hitter, but if you’re a baseball fan on the outside looking in at the game the fact that five guys pitched takes some of the excitement away from a no-hitter.

Tylor Megill made the start for the Mets, and he pitched five innings of no-hit baseball before being removed. Megill struck out five Phillies while walking three and threw just 88 pitches before he was removed from the game. In any other case that would be considered a short outing for a starting pitcher. Why remove him after just 88 pitches?

Last night was Megill’s’ 5th start of the season and in his two starts before this one he pitched 6 innings and 6 2/3rds innings, so he’s went deeper into games than he did last night, and he didn’t have a no-hitter in either of those other two starts. So, what was so different last night that he was limited to 5 innings and 88 pitches? He was on his regular rest, and he threw 92 pitches in the start before this. It’s just baffling to me that Megill wasn’t at least allowed to go out and start the 6th inning with a no-hitter going, but that’s analytical baseball.

After Megill left the game last night it was a parade of Mets reliever to finish things out. Drew Smith pitched 1 1/3rd innings, Joely Rodriguez pitched 1 inning, Seth Lugo pitched 2/3rds of an inning and then Edwin Diaz wrapped up the no-hitter getting the final three outs in the 9th inning. Smith and Diaz recorded all the outs they got via strikeout.

So, it was a no-hitter for the Mets who have the best record in baseball at 15-6 heading into today’s games. It was also a win over a division rival in Philadelphia, but when you think no-hitter or at least when I think no-hitter, I think one pitcher out there for nine innings battling against the other team and that wasn’t the case last night and may never be again thanks to analytics.

So, jump in here and help me out. What do you think of combined no-hitters? I’d also like to know if you think Megill should’ve been allowed to start the 6th inning with his no-hitter intact and having only throw 88 pitches? I’m starting to think that maybe I’m just old and that’s why I feel this way.

The 1st round of the NBA playoffs is in the books and there were no upsets even though some of the series may have gone longer than people expected them to. The 2nd round tips off tomorrow with the Boston Celtics hosting the Milwaukee Bucks. Then it’s the Golden State Warriors at the Memphis Grizzlies. On Monday the other two series get started. The first game has the Philadelphia 76ers at the Miami Heat while the second game has the Dallas Mavericks at the Phoenix Suns.

Who do you have winning those series?

Don’t forget to look me up on Twitter, I’m @Burketime.