Blake Snell of the San Francisco Giants, the league’s reigning Cy Young Award winner, pitched the first no-hit game of his career a couple of nights ago, beating the Cincinnati Reds 3-0.
Not only was it Snell’s first career no-hitter, it was the first complete game of his career. What has major league baseball come to when a starting pitcher wins a Cy Young award without throwing one single complete game?!
It’s not as common as you might think for a reigning Cy Young winner to throw a no-hitter. It’s only happened five times before.
Going back to when I was growing up watching baseball, Bob Gibson did it in 1971. As the Cy Young winner in 1970, Gibson pitched 20 complete games. That’s for one season. In his career, Gibson had 255 complete games.
Baseball’s a totally different game now. Much worse.
To be honest, I disagree and think that Major League Baseball went into the right direction. I went to a padres game last month and they won 10-2. The crowd was ecstatic for every home run that they hit and it was amazing. I appreciate good pitching, but full games these days will kill off all the pitchers in the league.
Tyler, I’m not sure I understand your comment. Pitching complete games didn’t kill Bob Gibson. It didn’t kill Nolan Ryan. He was still pitching well into his 40s. It didn’t kill any of their contemporaries.
Has human physiology deteriorated? What is your theory on this?
Good timing on the comment, btw, because the Cubs used three pitchers last night to throw a no-hitter. The starting pitcher was pulled after 7 innings because he’d thrown 95 pitches. The score at that point was Cubs 11, Pirates 0.
If you think it’s good for baseball to pull a pitcher throwing a no-hitter with an 11-0 lead, we’ll have to agree to disagree.