Throwing a no-hitter, you would say, is like lassoing the moon. You’ll be able to see the distant glow, beckoning and teasing all of sudden. Can you actually get there? Most likely not. However you possibly can dream.
On Aug. 13, 1969, in Oakland, Jim Palmer made the enormous leap for the Baltimore Orioles with 9 no-hit innings towards the Athletics. It was the identical day that Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins glided up Broadway and down Michigan Avenue for ticker-tape parades in New York and Chicago, adopted by a state dinner with President Richard M. Nixon in Los Angeles.
Palmer, now 75, has by no means been to the moon, in fact. However the no-hitter broadened his universe in a means no different Oriole had skilled till Wednesday, when John Means turned the primary Baltimore pitcher since Palmer to toss a complete-game no-hitter. Means subdued the Mariners, 6-0, with 12 strikeouts and no walks in Seattle.
4 Orioles mixed for a no-hitter in 1991, however going the gap set Means’s feat aside. It was his forty fourth profession begin and the primary to stretch previous the seventh inning. His work days won’t ever be the identical.
“Pitching a no-hitter — and pitching a no-hitter with a full sport now, as a result of they’re so uncommon — is form of like a gap in a single,” Palmer mentioned by cellphone on Wednesday evening. “It’s humorous, once you’re an excellent golfer, you have a look at a par-3, you wish to get on the inexperienced, you wish to make a birdie. And you then make a gap in a single, and for the remainder of your life, each time you tee a ball up on a par-3, you don’t take into consideration birdies — you concentrate on the potential for ‘ what? I may have a gap in a single.’
“So for the modern-day pitcher, in the event you’re John Means, you’ve by no means pitched an entire sport. You’ve by no means pitched a no-hitter or a one-hitter or a two-hitter or a three-hitter, since you’ve by no means pitched 9 innings. So now, each time he takes the ball, he’s effectively conscious — as a result of he’s finished it — that he may pitch a no-hitter, he may pitch an entire sport. There’s a litany of issues now, rapidly, that come into play.”
Palmer’s path led to 3 Cy Younger Awards, a spot within the Corridor of Fame and a protracted profession as an Orioles broadcaster. He was not working Wednesday’s sport, however he has intently adopted Means’s rise from an Eleventh-round draft alternative in 2014 to an unlikely spot on the opening day roster 5 years later.
“I sat with him at his locker in 2019 and he mentioned, ‘, I wasn’t one of many actual extremely touted prospects, so I may form of at all times fly below the radar,’” Palmer mentioned. “Till he made the membership — and it began that first weekend. He pitched three or 4 innings in aid up in Yankee Stadium, towards their A lineup, they usually didn’t have an opportunity. I feel he threw a dangling changeup and Gary Sanchez hit a solo house run. That was it.”
Means, 28, has not hung many changeups since. He made the All-Star Sport that summer time and was the runner-up for the American League Rookie of the 12 months Award, going 12-11 with a 3.60 earned run common. This season he’s 4-0 with a 1.37 E.R.A.
Final season, although, was wrenching: Means misplaced his father, Alan, to pancreatic most cancers in August. On Wednesday, as he ready to safe the no-hitter, Means considered his dad.
“I seemed in my glove proper earlier than I went on the market for the ninth, it had his initials on it, and I mentioned to myself, ‘He wouldn’t care, he’s simply glad that I’m having an excellent time,’” Means mentioned. “The accolades and all the things like that by no means mattered to him.”
Even so, Means mentioned, it took him a second to compose himself towards Dylan Moore, the leadoff hitter within the ninth.
“I acquired just a little little bit of the Jell-O legs, began to really feel just a little wobbly,” he mentioned. “However as soon as I threw that first pitch, I used to be in a position to lock in once more.”
Moore popped out to the third baseman in foul territory. Then Sam Haggerty struck out on a changeup, the weapon Means realized from the pitching coach Chris Holt at spring coaching in 2019, the separator that vaulted him to the majors for good.
Means threw another pitch, his 113th, and J.P. Crawford punched it softly on a line to shortstop Ramon Urias, ending the sport. Means had confronted the minimal 27 hitters and thrown 26 first-pitch strikes. The one batter who reached base was Haggerty within the third inning, on a third-strike breaking ball that skipped previous catcher Pedro Severino. Haggerty made it to first and not using a throw, however was then caught stealing.
It was the third nine-inning no-hitter of the 2021 season — after ones by the San Diego Padres’ Joe Musgrove and the Chicago White Sox’ Carlos Rodon in April — however Means’s efficiency was distinctive in trendy baseball historical past: By no means earlier than had a pitcher confronted solely 27 batters in a nine-inning no-hitter, with the one runner reaching base on a strikeout/wild pitch.
Solely twice earlier than had a pitcher didn’t throw an ideal sport regardless of going through the minimal 27 batters, whereas permitting no hits or walks. It occurred in 1960 to the Milwaukee Braves’ Lew Burdette, who hit a batter, and in 1990 to the Philadelphia Phillies’ Terry Mulholland, who allowed a batter to achieve base on an error. Each runners had been erased on double performs.
Severino mentioned he felt “very unhealthy” about letting the ball get by him, although he recovered by pegging Haggerty at second, very like the Phillies’ third baseman in 1990, Charlie Hayes, who made up for his error by lunging to spear a liner and seal Mulholland’s no-hitter.
In any case, Means was hardly disenchanted to overlook an ideal sport, which no pitcher has achieved since Felix Hernandez of the Mariners in August 2012. Means mentioned he had at all times needed to throw a no-hitter however by no means thought he may even attain the majors. As a boy, he mentioned, he would write “M.L.B. participant” when requested in class for his life targets, however he thought it sounded unrealistic.
“I used to be by no means that child who had a ton of confidence in myself,” Means mentioned.
Then he realized the changeup and commenced to determine himself. On Wednesday he explored the outer limits of his expertise, launching himself to a land no Orioles pitcher had visited for the reason that biggest of all of them, greater than half a century in the past.
“It’s been such a whirlwind of an expertise, and I don’t suppose I’ve been in a position to course of it but,” Means mentioned. “However to be in the identical breath as Palmer, I don’t suppose it will get significantly better than that.”