Last Night in Baseball: Braves’ no-hitter drought continues
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There is always baseball happening — almost too much baseball for one person to handle themselves.
That’s why we’re here to help, though, by sifting through the previous days’ games, and figuring out what you missed, but shouldn’t have. Here are all the best moments from last night in Major League Baseball:
The Braves lose a no-hitter in the 8th inning
April 8, 1994. That day, more than 31 years ago, was the last time an Atlanta Braves pitcher threw a no-hitter. It wasn’t Greg Maddux or any of the other Big Three, either: it was Kent Mercker who blanked the Dodgers in L.A. early in the 1994 season.
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AJ Smith-Shawver came close to ending that streak on Monday, when the 22-year-old rookie took a no-hitter into the eighth against the Cincinnati Reds. But then Reds third baseman Santiago Espinal broke it up with a single straight up the middle to lead off the inning.
Smith-Shawver, who was a high school teammate of Kansas City Royals shortstop Bobby Witt Jr., finished off the rest of the inning cleanly to wrap up the longest outing of his young career. In just his 11th major league start, the righty struck out five batters, walked four and allowed only the one hit over eight innings. He threw 99 total pitches, 60 of which were strikes.
The Braves closed out their 4-0 win, but their no-hitter drought continues on. It’s the fourth-longest in MLB, after the Cleveland Guardians (1981), Toronto Blue Jays (1990) and Royals (1991).
Meanwhile, it was a tough overall day for the Reds. Rookie outfielder Tyler Callihan, who made his major league debut only last week, broke his left forearm after trying to make a sliding catch. That turned into an inside-the-park home run instead. Double ouch.
Well, that was a spectacle, Padres
Sometimes ejections can deflate a team. Other times, they can do the opposite.
On Monday, in a rainy Yankee Stadium reminiscent of this past weekend’s Kentucky Derby, the San Diego Padres played inspired ball once manager Mike Shildt and star Fernando Tatis Jr. were sent to the clubhouse.
In the top of the eighth inning, struggling Yankees reliever Devin Williams was called in to try to preserve a 3-0 lead. He struck out the first batter before surrendering a walk and a single, bringing the slugging Tatis to the plate. After Tatis struck out, he said something to the umpire and was immediately tossed.
Shildt soon followed suit when he came out of the dugout, hurled his lineup card and pen, removed his glasses all dramatically and also threw them onto the grass, and then got in the ump’s face to share his two cents on the matter.
So with two outs and their best hitter and manager both gone, what did the Padres do? Score four straight runs in the inning to take the lead and then hold on for the drizzly 4-3 win.
The Padres plated all their runs in just the one inning, but they showed a lot of moxie all night — and that was the difference in the game.
Francisco Lindor has got It
You know what’s great about Francisco Lindor? Everything. He can field, he can hit, and on Monday night, he did a bit of both. First up was a homer: Lindor put the Mets up 5-1 in the seventh inning with a three-run shot off of Diamondbacks’ hurler Ryan Thompson:
The D-backs would make it a closer affair after that, however, scoring three runs in the eighth after loading the bases on Dedniel Nunez, who somehow walked three batters in a row to setup that difficult situation. And then, in the ninth, Arizona started to get something going when Alek Thomas reached on a throwing error and then later attempted to steal second. Lindor was having none of that, though – check out this incredible tag, presented in slow motion:
As the broadcast notes, you can see the pinky finger of Lindor’s glove move as Thomas’ foot strikes it midslide, letting us know exactly when the tag was applied by the Mets’ shortstop. Wonderful stuff that kept the D-backs from threatening once more, and allowed the Mets to hold onto the 5-4 lead they’d built up thanks to, once again, Lindor.
Pretty good night for fans of both the Mets and the Knicks. Decent night for Knicks/Yankees followers. Yankees/Nets? Well, at least the Nets didn’t lose, right?
An eventful night for the Dodgers
The Dodgers had three items of note go down in the same game, a 7-4 win against the Marlins. First up was Freddie Freeman, who hit a two-run home run in the third inning to put the Dodgers up 3-0. That’s all well and good, but it just so happened to be the 350th home run of his career, putting Freeman in a tie for 100th all-time alongside Chili Davis. While just 101 players have reached the 350-homer mark in the long history of MLB, Manny Machado (345), Nolan Arenado (344), and Bryce Harper (342) should all join Freeman there this season before long.
Later, rookie second baseman Hyeseong Kim logged his first big-league hit with a single in the fifth inning, and then his second career hit and his first RBI when he deposited a single into center field in the top of the sixth.
Dodgers vs. Marlins Highlights | MLB on FOX
And then there was Shohei Ohtani’s home run, which, with an exit velocity of 117.9 mph, is the hardest-hit home run in MLB this year. Amazingly enough, it’s only the fifth-hardest-hit homer of his career, as MLB.com noted, and Ohtani now holds the top 13 spots on the exit velocity leaderboards established back in 2015 when Statcast started to track the category.
That took what, three seconds to leave the park? Ridiculous.
Oh, and just because, Ohtani also stole his 10th base of the season. The first-ever 50/50 player is now up to 9/10 in this young followup season.
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