Corbin Burnes flirted with the perfect game. After walking, he didn’t even get a chance to pitch the ninth inning. But in the no-hitter campaign, that didn’t prevent a record.
Ace Burnes teamed up with reliever Josh Hader to pitch the unprecedented ninth major league no-hitter this season in the Saturday game the Milwaukee Brewers beat the Cleveland Indians 3-0.
“It was a masterpiece,” said Milwaukee manager Craig Counsell.
The nine games without a hit this season broke a record that was set in 1884, when pitchers began pitching by waving their arms over their heads.
Burnes struck out 14 on 115 pitches over eight innings. He had a perfect game until the seventh inning, knocking out the Indians, who were hitless for the third time in 2021.
This time the ones in charge of embarrassing them were Burnes – who has become a candidate for the Cy Young trophy on a team that has a comfortable lead as the leader of the NL Central – and Hader, one of the best closer in the majors. .
Cleveland is the first team to be hitless in three different games in the same year. And all of them have been Zach Plesac (10-5) starts.
Right-hander Burnes was in control from the start, striking out 11 of his first 14 opponents. Withdrawn in order to the first 18.
After walking Myles Straw at the start of the seventh inning, the 26-year-old pitcher solved the eighth thanks to a dive from Lorenzo Cain, who caught an Owen Miller line in center field.
The crowd at Progressive Field booed the decision to send Hader to the mound to resolve the ninth inning. Undeterred, he struck out Colombian Oscar Mercado at the start. First baseman Jace Peterson ventured into foul territory to catch a fly ball, which marked the second out.
Hader accomplished the feat by causing Straw to fan a pitch almost across the ground.
“Anyone would have wanted to keep pitching in that situation, but if there’s anyone I want to see on the mound in the ninth inning, it’s Josh Hader,” Burnes said. “There was no nervousness with him. It was as if we considered it certain that he would succeed ”.
The Brewers entered the field jubilantly to share hugs and claps in a victory that defines their terrific season.
Puerto Rican Juan Nieves was the author of the Brewers’ previous no-hitter game, on April 15, 1987, in Baltimore.
Rookie Tyler Gilbert had pitched the most recent no-hitter in the majors, on Aug. 14, for Arizona. The Chicago Cubs had achieved the other combined double zero on June 24.
The other unstoppable games of the season were San Diego’s Joe Musgrove on April 9, White Sox’s Carlos Rodon on 14, Baltimore’s John Means on May 5, Cincinnati’s Wade Miley on 7, Detroit’s Spencer Turnbull. on the 18th and Corey Cluber of the Yankees on the 19th.
Many of those games came before the Major Leagues more zealously sanctioned sticky substance use by pitchers in late June.
Miley and Rodon’s no-hitters came against the Indians, as did a Tampa Bay double-zero, on July 7. But that duel didn’t count as a no-hitter in the Major League Baseball record book.
Also, Arizona’s Madison Bumgarner had a seven-inning no-hitter in the second game of a doubleheader in Atlanta on April 25. (MLB EN ESPAÑOL.COM)
Brewers seal no-hitter against Indians
