Tag: Matt Garza

Matt Garza Throws Fifth MLB No-Hitter, Rays’ First Ever

Tampa Bay Rays’ Pitcher Matt Garza now joins Edwin Jackson, Dallas Braden, Ubaldo Jimenez, and Roy Halladay as MLB’s pitchers to throw no hitters or perfect games in this amazing 2010 baseball season.

So really, what is it? It’s gotta be something. First off, this is the third time the Rays have been involved in a no hitter (Braden threw a perfect against them and Jackson threw a no hitter against them) three times in one year. The last time that’s happened was 1917. 

And the last time a Tampa Bay Rays pitcher threw a no hitter? Never. Matt Garza is just another piece to the Cinderella story that the Rays have become.

Making a World Series appearance in 2008 is where it all began. 

This year has been nothing more but a crazy ride for Rays fans and followers, being victim of a perfect game and no hitter. They have surpassed the Red Sox due to many injuries in Boston and with each day come a little closer to catching the New York Yankees atop the standings.

What about Garza? He had his highest pitch count of the season tonight with 120 and he faced one of the best hitting teams in baseball, the Detroit Tigers led by Triple Crown contender Miguel Cabrera. He shut them down. Garza walked one batter but still faced the minimum of 27 batters thanks to a beautifully turned double play by Evan Longoria.

Garza is 11-5 this year with an ERA of 4.06 and the most amazing thing about his no hitter is the way he bounced back from a horrible start in his last outing. Against the Baltimore Orioles, he gave up 10 hits, allowed seven earned runs and four home runs. It was a horrific outing against one of baseball’s worst teams and he turned it around by throwing a no hitter against one of baseball’s best teams. In doing so, 101 of his 120 pitches were fastballs.

He throws fast, and changes things around fast. Rays fans have to hope he doesn’t change the things that brought him this stellar performance. MLB’s “Year of the pitcher” continues. 

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Matt Garza, Tampa Bay Rays Experience Joy of First No-Hitter

The Rays kicked off an 11-game homestand Monday night by playing the first game of a four-game set against the Tigers. After the Rays are finished with the Tigers, they will face the Yankees this weekend and the Twins next week.

Tigers starter Max Scherzer started off the game by retiring six in a row, and then he wiggled himself out of a jam a couple of times in the game. Through six innings, he matched Matt Garza by pitching six shutout innings.

It appeared the Rays were going to make a mediocre pitcher look great as usual.

Scherzer approached the Rays similar to how Fausto Carmona approached
them by getting ahead in the count and forcing the Rays to swing at pitches. Like Carmona, Scherzer got the Rays out on strikes and groundouts.

Once a starter does well against the Rays for seven innings, the Rays tend to mail it in rather than coming up with a plan to get to the pitcher. Scherzer loaded the bases, but he had two outs on his side and odds were good he was going to get out of it with the way he pitched all night.

Then, Matt Joyce belted the ball out of the park for a grand slam to give the Rays a 4-0 lead.

That was the end of the Tigers’ night with the way Garza was pitching. It was also the end of ridiculing the Rays for not beating up an average pitcher when they should. For one night, the Rays silenced critics about how they needed to bat.

The attention shifted to Garza, who quietly was pitching a no-hitter. The cowbell fanatics did not notice it until the eighth inning. They were more consumed about how the Rays were going to beat Scherzer.

From there, the acoustic level of those cowbells grew higher at every pitch Garza threw.

In the eighth inning, Garza ramped it up by striking out Brennan Boesch and Ryan Raburn to end the eighth. He received a standing ovation after that inning, and everyone became excited with the ninth inning coming up.

Rays announcer DeWayne Statts knew something special was going on in the sixth inning, but he made it a point not to talk about it. He never made any reference about what Garza was doing for eight innings even though he knew what was going on.

It’s part of Statts’ announcing policy, in which he makes a point not to talk about a Ray pitching a perfect game or a no-hitter because of a silly superstitious rule. Announcers never mention a pitcher is pitching a no-hitter for the fear of jinxing him.

Statts made references to a no-hitter in the ninth inning even though he never mentioned “no-hitter” on the air. He talked about how Garza has a chance to do something special on this night, and he and Kevin Kennedy analyzed how Garza put himself in the position he was in the ninth inning by pitching well most of the night.

Rays sideline reporter Todd Kalas talked about how fans were ready to embrace this great moment in the ninth inning. The cowbells amped up even louder heading into the inning.

Facing the Tigers’ hitters in the bottom of their order to start the ninth, Garza had to like his chances. Dom Kelly, Gerald Laird, and Ramon Santiago were not exactly hitters that fear pitchers.

Kelly hit it hard, but Reid Brignac positioned himself well to make a good catch and get Kelly out.  Laird tried to get couple of good at-bats against Garza, but in the end, Garza’s fastball overwhelmed Laird. Striking out Laird helped Garza get two more outs.

It was up to Santiago to ruin it for the night, but Santiago struck out.

The party was on at Tropicana Field.

Fans rejoiced.

Garza hugged everyone on the Rays. Statts finally blurted out the no-hitter despite being stoic about the whole thing.

After seeing a couple of pitchers no-hit the Rays this season, the baseball gods were kind to the Rays by giving them their first no-hitter in franchise history. The Mets and the Padres are the only teams in franchise history that do not have a no-hitter.

To do this in front of a home crowd has to be special for Garza. Anyone throwing a no-hitter will be proud of this accomplishment. It’s hard to do despite the fact many
pitchers threw a no-hitter during this season.

For the Rays, it has to be something good after being a victim of no-hitters several times. The reaction of the Rays in celebrating what happened Monday night said it all.

For the Tigers, being a victim of Garza’s no-hitter represented a frustrating post-All-Star break start so far. They lost six straight to start the second half, and they won three out of 12 games overall since July 16th. They lost a couple of their best hitters to the disabled list in Magglio Ordonez and Carlos Guillen. It’s no wonder why Jim Leyland wanted to get tossed in the fourth inning after he argued a call about B.J. Upton being safe.

Garza said all the right things about being more worried about getting his team in October than worrying about his feat. Of course, he was smiling throughout all this and enjoyed the adulation. He even liked being hit in the face with a pie.

When a team is having a great season, no-hitters take place. Maybe it wasn’t surprising to see the Rays finally get one.

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Ranking the Five No-Hitters So Far in 2010 MLB Season

Now that Matt Garza has provided us with the fifth no-hitter of the season we might as well rank the great performances we have seen. It is apparent that the steroids-era in baseball is over.

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Matt Garza No-Hitter: The Year of Fear. Not Pitchers.

As Matt Garza finished off his no-hitter against the Tigers this evening, everyone watched in awe as “the year of pitchers” swarmed over them yet one more time. 2010 has been an interesting year when it comes to accomplishments, but this year, the accomplishments seem to have an interesting twist.

Consider the following list of some accomplishments we have observed this season:

 

– Roy Halladay pitches a perfect game.

– Dallas Braden pitches a perfect game.

– Ubaldo Jimenez pitches a no-hitter.

– Stephen Strasburg strikes out 14 Pirates in his MLB debut.

– Armando Galarraga loses a perfect game with two outs in the ninth inning.

– Edwin Jackson pitches a no-hitter.

– Ted Lily loses a no-hitter in the ninth inning.

If one thing sticks out on this list, it is — obviously — that all involve pitchers. It would appear that 2010 is “the year of the pitchers,” and the numbers back that up.

In the 2010 season, an average of 6.95 batters strike out every game. That is the highest in Major League Baseball history.

But before we begin to decipher “the year of the pitchers,” lets look at the other side. MLB averages .94 home runs per game this season. That is the lowest since 1993.

So which one is it? Is it the batters that are dominating, or is it the pitchers that are dominating?

That has been the talk of the baseball world for some time now. Many attribute the success of pitchers and lack of home runs to the performance enhancing drug (PED) suspensions that have been handed out in the last few years. The theory is that, after all the recent suspensions, players are afraid to continue using PED’s, and thus have experienced a decline in results. If we could prove that this is the case, then we could conclude that pitchers have not gotten better, but batters have gotten worse.

So how do we go about proving this? First we need to identify how PED’s influenced the game.

PED’s make players stronger. They do not increase coordination. So, PED’s add some kind of distance to a fly ball. In other words, a fly out to deep right for a player that is not taking PED’s would be a home run for a player who is taking PED’s.

But what would that look like in the stats? Essentially, if players are suddenly not taking PED’s, then less fly balls would result in home runs.

If you compare 2009 to 2010, that is indeed the case. Taking a look at the home run to fly ball ratio, 2010 has seen almost a one percent decrease compared to 2009. When looking at league averages, one percent is a very significant figure.

Thus, we can now conclude that the increase in strikeouts and the decrease in home runs is due to fear. Players are afraid of being suspended, and are therefore not taking drugs anymore. We do not have the data to determine how many players are on — or were on — PED’s, but the decrease in the amount of fly balls that result in home runs suggests that many players were indeed on PED’s.

Looking at this with a wider perspective, Major League Baseball has accomplished what many thought was impossible, and they did it quite promptly. For all the arguing over whether suspensions weren’t long enough, it seems as though the punishment didn’t stimulate the result, the fear did.

You can e-mail me at jess@jesskcoleman.com or follow me on Twitter @jesskcoleman .

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Tainted Concession Stand Food Causes Near Double No-Hitter (Satire)

Spoiled food in the clubhouse and concession stands at Tropicana Field nearly resulted in two no-hitters in the July 26 contest between the Tampa Bay Rays and Detroit Tigers.

When a report from Sports Illustrated stating that 100 percent of concession stands in Tropicana Field failed their food safety inspections in the last 12 months began circulating on the internet, players and fans alike were skeptical but no more after the results of today’s contest.

“I got up to the plate in the 3rd, and I just had the worst stomach cramps,” Detroit catcher Gerald Laird said after the game. “So did everyone else. We figured if we just swung, swung, swung, we could just go back to the clubhouse and, you know.” Laird went 0-3 with two strikeouts on the day.

Matt Joyce says the Rays had the same problem when he was up to bat in the bottom of the 6th.

“The bases were loaded even though we weren’t trying to get hits and didn’t have any at all, you know?” He said in the clubhouse after the game. “The other guys out there on base were staring at me like, ‘you better do something big here, I gotta get back in there.’ So I swung and knocked it out of the park.”

No Ray got a hit until Joyce’s slam in the bottom of the 6th, but no Tiger got a hit at all in this ballgame which is the first no-hitter in Tampa Bay Rays history.

“It was great, I didn’t have my best stuff, but I did it anyway with the help of my defense and the free-swinging Tigers. Now if you’ll excuse me,” said Garza as he ran into the clubhouse after the brief post-game celebration which consisted of players running to the mound, stopping halfway, and going back into the clubhouse.

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Matt Garza Throws A No-Hitter: Why Baseball Is the Most Exciting Sport

Matt Garza took the headlines away from Alex Rodriguez’s pursuit of 600 home runs and became the first Rays pitcher to ever throw a no-hitter, leaving the Padres and Mets as the only teams without a no-hitter.

And in what style: during a game being shown on ESPN and only facing 27 hitters. Of course the no-hitter required excellent fielding plays, like one by Ben Zobrist in right field.

A great game by both pitchers—Detroit pitcher Max Scherzer carried a no-no through six.

The ninth inning began with Don Kelly grounding out to short, Gerald Laird striking out, and Santiago flying out to right. His six strikeouts aren’t a hoard amount, but he threw 120 pitches. Garza didn’t do the traditional sit-on-the-end-of-the-bench routine, but instead hung out with guys like he was just throwing an average game. Garza never showed signs of fatigue—his fastball hit 96 mph in the ninth inning. He used that fastball to work hitters high and then throw his misleading breaking ball low and out.

 

Have you ever that time-old expression about why baseball is the greatest game ever played? “You can’t sit on a lead and run a few plays into the line and just kill the clock. You’ve got to throw the ball over the goddamn plate and give the other man a chance.” -Earl Weaver.

“Since baseball time is measured in outs, all you have to do is succeed utterly. Keep hitting the ball, keep the rally alive, and you have defeated time. You will be forever young.” -Roger Angell.

Two of the greatest sports-related quotes of all time. Baseball is the greatest sport ever.

After Matt Garza’s no-hitter tonight, I thought why baseball is great. There is no other thing like a no hitter.

In football, the greatest feat you can get is probably 300 rushing yards. In basketball, it’s probably scoring 60+ points. In hockey, five goals. This stuff usually doesn’t happen, though. A no-hitter is so exciting; it’s all or nothing. Those others are just great games if they don’t happen.

No hitters are so thrilling—the thought of a perfect game, the downfall after a walk, the intensity of whether or not a play will be ruled an error, the easy going ninth inning following the heart racing eighth—here’s a stat for you—more than 60 percent of no hitters broken up after the sixth inning are broken in the eighth. Less than three in the ninth.

Baseball is a man’s game—you have to play through the whole game, instead of pussing out and running out the clock. You have to “throw the ball over the goddamn plate and give the other man his chance.”

Follow Jordan Wolf on Twitter:

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Matt Garza No-Hitter: MLB Pitching Dominance Better Than Steroids Era?

Tampa Bay Rays’ Matt Garza just tossed Major League Baseball’s fifth no-hitter of the season.

You have to go back 20 years to 1990 to find a season with more than three no-hitters, when six were thrown.

In MLB history only 20 pitchers have thrown a perfect game. Two of those were thrown this season, and that doesn’t include Armando Galarraga’s gem that would have been perfect if not for that one missed call.

If you have been paying attention, you know what is going on.

The pitching numbers have been absurd this season. It’s no surprise that many people are calling this the new age of pitching.

If you are a baseball purist, you are probably loving it right now. The game at its purest form, with pitching dominating hitting, requiring more strategy when the hits are fewer and far between.

But if you are a fan who likes to see some action in the sports you watch, then you might not be enjoying this Renaissance so much.

Dare I say it: Would some people prefer the excitement that reverberated throughout stadiums when power hitting ruled baseball? Yes, I am referring to the Steroids Era.

If you go back to 1990, the last time so many pitchers threw gems, the game was on pace to hit a lockout and lose a little bit of its luster.

It took the great home run derby between Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire to resurrect interest in the sport for much of America.

Looking back on the Steroids Era, many people are horrified at what actually transpired and at how the record books were tarnished by these steroid users.

But, you have to wonder if some fans long for the days of excitement, even at the cost of steroids.

The purists will scoff at those people, saying they are not true fans. But that group will say that a sport needs fans to generate excitement.

It certainly can be a catch-22 of sorts for sports, between the fundamentals and the excitement of seeing professional athletes do what we cannot.

Sure, most of us cannot pitch one of these no-hitters, but is it more exciting for you to watch a pitcher stifle a team into not hitting a single ball or a player smack a few long balls in a game?

Most people will think this is blasphemy, but what is your opinion on the matter? Which form of baseball do you prefer: pitching dominance or hitting power galore? Or is it even a question?

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Matt Garza Throws First No-Hitter in Tampa Bay Rays History

Matt Garza pitched the first no-hitter in Tampa Bay Rays history and the fifth in MLB this season, defeating the Detroit Tigers 5-0.

Garza faced the minimum 27 batters, giving up a second-inning walk to Brennan Boesch, but then forcing the next batter Ryan Raburn into a double play.

Garza threw 120 pitches, 80 of which were for strikes, striking out six.

The San Diego Padres and New York Mets are now the only MLB teams that have never had a pitcher throw a no-hitter.

The Padres’ closest bid came against the Philadelphia Phillies on July 18, 1972, when Steve Arlin came within one out of a no-hitter before a Denny Doyle single broke up the bid.

The New York Mets, who began play in 1962, is the franchise that has been in the majors the longest without pitching a no-hitter. Mets’ pitchers, however, have thrown 33 one-hitters.

The Washington Nationals technically have four no-hitters, but all came when the team was the Montreal Expos.

Tigers pitcher Max Scherzer had a no-hitter through 5.2 innings. But after two walks and a catcher’s interference by Gerald Laird loaded the bases, former Tiger Matt Joyce unloaded a 3-1 pitch into the right field seats to end the no-hit bid and the shutout.

MLB’s longest multi-no-hit game took place this season when Chicago Cubs’ Ted Lilly and the Chicago White Sox’s Gavin Floyd each took no-hitters into the seventh with Floyd losing his after 6.1 innings pitched and Lilly losing his after 8.1 innings pitched.

The last time there were five no-hitters in a MLB season was in 1991.

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Matt Garza Throws First No-Hitter in Tampa Bay Rays History

The Padres and Mets are now the only Major League Baseball teams that have never had a pitcher throw a no-hitter.

Matt Garza threw the first no-hitter in Tampa Bay Rays history as they beat the Detroit Tigers 5-0. Garza completed the fifth no-hitter in Major League Baseball this year.

You knew eventually the tide would turn for the Rays, who had been on the wrong side of phenomenal pitching outings this season.

Garza only allowed a second-inning walk out of the 27 batters he faced.

Ben Zobrist sealed the game, catching a routine fly ball to right field.

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Should Fantasy Baseball Owners Sell Matt Garza?

Matt Garza is a pitcher that I was extremely high on heading into the season and he certainly hasn’t disappointed. Just look at the numbers through 11 starts:

5 Wins
76.0 Innings
3.08 ERA
1.21 WHIP
60 Strikeouts (7.1 K/9)
27 Walks (3.2 BB/9)
.266 BABIP

In fact, he has exceeded just about anyone’s expectations. The question is, can he possibly maintain this type of success?

First off, the BABIP is on the luckier side, but don’t yet declare it a foregone conclusion that he regresses there. Just look at his numbers from the previous two years:

  • 2008 – .278 (184.2 IP)
  • 2009 – .284 (203.0 IP)

He’s not significantly far from those marks, is he? Yes, he’s below average, but it is very possible that he can maintain it, or at least not have a huge regression.

Even if he does, it shouldn’t have that big of an impact because you would expect his strikeouts to improve from here on out. He’s down over a strikeout per nine nnings from 2009 (8.4 K/9). 

He also has his minor league track record in his corner (10.0 K/9 over 307.0 IP). At Triple-A in 2007, he posted a 9.3 mark over 92.0 innings. I wouldn’t suggest a huge increase, but he certainly could post an 8.0 mark from here on out and it wouldn’t be a surprise.

The one number that is concerning is the strand rate, currently sitting at 82.7%. That’s good for the seventh best mark in the league, so if you are looking for the big sign for a regression that’s the one to point to and rightfully so.

There are a few other factors to weigh in, of course. Pitching in the AL East, there are plenty of matchups with the Yankees & Red Sox on the horizon. No matter how good the Rays are, those are tough games and wins could be few and far between.

I wouldn’t make the decision in your mind to just sell him no matter what, but if someone in your league is willing to give up a good player for him it certainly is worth exploring. You have to think it’ll be tough for him to maintain that ERA, so kick the tires and see what is out there.

Have you already traded Garza? If so, what did you get? Would you hold onto him or do you think a regression is coming?

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