Riddle me this: when would throwing a one-hit, complete game shutout victory featuring 17 strikeouts against one of the better teams in the major leagues ever feel like someone had just punched you in the gut?
Answer: when that one single blemish that prevented you from tossing a no-hitter came with two outs in the bottom of the ninth!
And that's exactly what happened to Brandon Morrow of the Toronto Blue Jays yesterday afternoon. I tuned to the game in the 8th inning, and noticed that the box score for the visiting Tampa Bay Rays showed a big, fat zero in the hits column. I had the volume turned low so that Vicki wouldn't notice and be temped to say, "Hey, look! The Jays have a no-hitter going on!" (she just doesn't get the whole "don't jinx it" thing). As things turned out, I was doing her a major favour by watching out for her like that!
When it got to 2 outs in the bottom of the night (with the score 1-0 Jays), I actually allowed myself to hope they might pull it off. Then Evan ("Don't call me Eva") Longoria hit a bouncer to the right of second baseman Aaron Hill. The infielder was able to get a glove on it but couldn't come up with the ball cleanly. Then I waited to see if it would be scored a hit or an error (an error would've preserved the chance for a no-hitter), only to see the goose egg disappear in the hits column for Tampa Bay.
I'm not sure how many times, in the history of the game, a no-hitter has been lost with just one out to go. But it certainly doesn't surprise me that the Jays in 2010 would be one team to do so. They just appear snake bitten this season, and so this sort of thing fits right in.
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