It finally happened
I attended a no-hitter mere miles from home, which led me to some interesting findings.
As I walked out of Angel Stadium on the night of Tuesday, May 10, fans around me were giddy. A couple of them mentioned that pitcher Reid Detmers just delivered the first no-hitter they had seen in person, and I was right there with them. I do remember viewing the David Wells and David Cone perfect games on the Yankees’ television network as a teenager, and it’s true that combined no-hitters have seemed to occur with surprising regularity recently.
That morning, I had bought the cheapest ticket I could find to watch Orange County’s team face the Tampa Bay Rays. The franchise honored last year’s American League MVP Shohei Ohtani with a pregame ceremony and bobbleheads to match. Even his hardware was on display.
After a quick trip to the team outlet store, I took my seat immediately overlooking the bullpens. By all rights, Tampa’s former Cy Young Award winner Corey Kluber should have been favored to earn the win. Instead, the Angels chased Kluber by collecting 11 hits and scoring eight runs in the first three innings. Mike Trout hit his eighth homer of the season, and somehow I have been in the ballpark for five home runs in as many games. Chad Wallach also went deep, making the product of Cal State Fullerton part of the only father-son duo to accomplish that in franchise history. His dad Tim played in Anaheim during the 1996 campaign, although the elder Wallach is mostly known for his days spent in Montreal.
Meanwhile, Reid Detmers was carving up a somewhat shorthanded Rays lineup that was missing Ji-Man Choi. Detmers, who is just 22, entered the evening with a spotty track record including a career ERA of 6.33. However, he was highly regarded as a prospect by the organization. Nevertheless, the Angels’ offense had gotten off to such a fast start that Detmers’ excellence didn’t really hit me until the fifth inning. After all, he would strike out only two batters during the entire game. The last no-hitter with two punchouts or fewer was turned in by Francisco Liriano in 2011 and only one other such game has been pitched since 1980.
Only thrice in major league history has a no-hitter featured zero strikeouts. In 1912, Earl Hamilton of the St. Louis Browns defeated the Tigers in a 5-1 victory. 1923 saw Sam Jones of the Yankees beat the Athletics 2-0. Like Babe Ruth, Jones arrived in the Big Apple after a Red Sox fire sale. Finally, Ken Holtzman led the Cubs to a 3-0 win over the Braves in 1969.
Now, back to the present. In the sixth inning, Taylor Walls worked a walk and Brett Phillips reached on a fielding error by Jared Walsh in the seventh. The crowd estimated at over 39,000 cheered loudly when the official scorer confirmed that the play would not be classified as a hit. Even Walsh admitted that it was a defensive miscue after the game.
The Angels scored another four runs in the eighth after Rays manager Kevin Cash eschewed his bullpen and sent Phillips to the mound. Trout clubbed his second homer of the game, Ohtani drilled a double, and Anthony Rendon homered after deciding to bat from the left side of the plate. It was the second no-hitter since 1900 to include a position player appearance on the mound, with the other occasion coming recently in 2020.
As entertaining as that sequence was, everyone knew that the real drama was still to come. During the game the Rays actually put eight balls in play that were considered “hard hit” at 95 mph or more, but none of those came in the ninth.
During the final half inning, speedy prospect Vidal Bruján saw three straight curveballs before eventually fouling out to Wallach. For the penultimate batter, Detmers needed four pitches to dispatch Kevin Kiermaier via the ground out. All eyes turned to Yandy Díaz. Detmers deployed his fastball and changeup before the Rays' first baseman tapped the ball to shortstop Andrew Velázquez. The defensive whiz fired to Walsh at first base and the performance was complete.
What will I remember most about this pitching gem? Certainly, the reaction of hopeful fans throughout the game was fun to witness. It’s a selling point for the sport that deciding to purchase tickets only hours before a game can lead spectators to witness something they’ve never seen before and may never again, at least in person. The night also exemplified the sense of possibility that 2022 has granted me. This world is far from perfect, but getting the chance to relax next to a green expanse while watching this sort of story unfold is an escape I missed so much back when stadiums were off limits.
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The following links were instrumental to my research: