MLB Delly: Chris Heston Continues the Charmed No-Hit Life for the Giants
By Mike Cardillo
Welcome to MLB Daily Delly on a Wednesday. Shirts, shoes and hits aren’t required …
Omega Man: If you tabbed Giants rookie Chris Heston to throw the first no-hitter of 2015, reckon you are from the future and if that’s the case why are you reading this blog post when there are like one or two (at best) things to do with your time traveling powers. Then again, betting on someone from the San Francisco staff to twirl a no-no isn’t too crazy since the franchise has done it four straight seasons — talk about a charmed life, eh?
Still, a mostly unknown 27-year-old rookie who’d been designated for assignment (and unclaimed by 29 other teams) as recently as two seasons ago is a fairly unlikely candidate for a no-hitter, even against the anemic lineup the Mets trotted out last night. No hitters remains quirky. For every Felix Hernandez, Roy Halladay or Clayton Kershaw who tosses one, there’s just as many thrown by the likes of Bud Smith, Jose Jimenez or the classic example Phillip Humber who threw a perfect game in 2012 and finished the season out of the White Sox rotation.
Watching the no-hitter unfold on SNY — note I didn’t text Shamburger to jinx it this time — it was fun as the Mets’ broadcast team marveled at how easy it was for Heston. Gary Cohen noted Heston, who hit three batters, only gave up two fly ball outs instead allowing the Mets batters to meekly groundout. In the ninth, the Mets went down on three called third strikes. You’d think in that situation you’d want to go down swinging, but what do I know?
Brandon Crawford, a veteran of previous San Francisco no-hitters, offered this quote to the San Jose Mercury News:
"“Usually there’s a great play that saves a hit or there’ll be line drives at somebody. There really wasn’t anything. It was pretty easy, actually.”"
No-hitters are a good excuse for some baseball stat minutiae. Heston’s no-no is the first by a rookie since Clay Buchholz in 2007. The last no-hitter by a rookie in the National League was Anibal Sanchez in 2006. Per Cohen on the SNY broadcast, the last time the Mets were no-hit came on Sept. 18, 1993 by the late Darryl Kile at the Astrodome.
Here’s the final out. I kind of love that within a few seconds of the final called third strike, the Giants announcers are talking about Christy Mathewson. History is part of what keeps me loving baseball.
Also cool? One of Heston’s former Little League coaches from Florida came to New York and saw him pitch in the Majors for the first time. On a side note: if you’re a Mets fan at the game in the ninth inning are you rooting for the no-hitter or not? If I bought a ticket I’d probably like to say I saw a no-hitter rather than someone breaking it up in the ninth, meaning it was just another loss on the calendar.
A Man Without a Country?: Albert Pujols hit his 16th homer of the season last night, giving him 536 in his career. This ties him with Mickey Mantle on the all-time home run list.
Given Mantle’s place in baseball history, you’d think Pujols tying (and passing) him would be a bigger deal. If Pujols played out his entire career in St. Louis it would be more significant, I’d guess, since he hit 445 home runs in 11 seasons there. Although he’s been an above-average run producer since jumping to to the Angels four years ago, it’s hard to disassociate Pujols and the Angels with his massive 10-year contract. Thinking of that contract, Arte Moreno likely envisioned thoughts of Pujols breaking all sorts of records in an Angels uniform, which sounds good on paper but are the teams’ fans going to care all that much since he did so much of it for another club? Just a thought.
Contrast that to Giancarlo Stanton, who moved past Bryce Harper atop the 2015 home run list with two dingers in Toronto last night — his 20th and 21st of the year. Say whatever you will of the Marlins and his massive 13-year contract, but as he continues to make history and move up the charts at least he’s doing it for the team he came up with. Miami fans don’t often have a lot to cheer for, but Stanton is one.
Stanton, only 25, sports a 41 homer average over 162 games and 175 in his six-year career. Even if he kept up that pace over the final 12 years of his deal he’d still be about 100 homers shy of catching Barry Bonds all time at 762.
Delly Reference: The New York Times found a way to incorporate baseball, Cleveland and Matthew Dellavedova … honest. Here’s the link and it centers around the immortal 1889 Cleveland Spiders. Doubt you’ll come across a better link today!
That’s a Walk-off: Good news for the Blue Jays, Edwin Encarnacion returned to the lineup Tuesday and smacked a game-winning two-run home in the ninth to deep center. Toronto won for the seventh straight game.
The bad news? The Yankees — aided in major part by a Ian Desmond error in the seventh — beat Max Scherzer and the Nationals to win their seventh straight. Toronto is back to .500 at 30-30 but is still 4.5 games off the Yankees and actually closer to the last-place Red Sox in the standings.
This & That: Mariano Rivera’s son was drafted by the Nationals yesterday, while the Tigers took Kirk Gibson’s son. … Carson Smith picked up another save for Mariners last night, as Seattle defeated Corey Kluber in Cleveland. … Soft-tossing Chris Young flirted with a no-hitter in Minnesota. Ned Yost must have magic powers or something. … Carlos Correa needed two games to notch his first big-league homer, but the Astros lost their sixth straight, falling to White Sox rookie Carlos Rodon. … Justin Verlander will make his season debut Saturday vs. Cleveland. … Baltimore beat Boston 1-0 with Steve Pearce scoring the game’s only run on a wild pitch. Gotta love the AL East! … Joey Votto hit three home runs last night. For whatever it’s worth he’s got 176 for his career, one more than Stanton albeit in 300+ more games.
[Work on hitting]