A's beat by perfect game for 2nd time in franchise history; Cy Young threw the first
OAKLAND -- No streak lasts forever, but the one the A¡¯s built for over three decades felt as if it would never be broken.
Eventually, all good streaks come to an end. For the A¡¯s it was their incredible run of 5,010 consecutive games without being no-hit, which stood as the longest such streak in MLB. In an 11-0 loss to the Yankees on Wednesday night at the Coliseum, Domingo Germ¨¢n snapped that stretch with a historic feat, tossing the 24th perfect game in AL/NL history.
A remarkable 31 years and 339 days had passed since the A¡¯s were last no-hit, when four Orioles pitchers combined for a no-hitter in Oakland on July 13, 1991.
It¡¯s the 15th time in franchise history that the A¡¯s have been no-hit and the second time they¡¯ve had a perfect game thrown against them. The first to do it: Cy Young, who went 27 up, 27 down against the then-Philadelphia Athletics as a member of the Boston Americans for the first perfect game in the Modern Era (since 1900) on May 5, 1904.
In the history of the Oakland Coliseum, Germ¨¢n became the third pitcher to throw a perfect game in the venue, joining Dallas Braden (May 9, 2010) and Catfish Hunter (May 8, 1968).
¡°The kid did an amazing job of keeping us off balance all night and we didn¡¯t do a good job of making the adjustment,¡± A¡¯s manager Mark Kotsay said of Germ¨¢n. ¡°He threw strikes. He pounded the zone, obviously. You don¡¯t not throw strikes and go nine innings without a baserunner. Overall, offensively, our approach wasn¡¯t great. We didn¡¯t make any adjustments tonight to what he was doing.¡±
Perhaps the most impressive aspect of Germ¨¢n¡¯s night of perfection was the efficiency with which he reached it. The right-hander retired all 27 of Oakland¡¯s batters on just 99 pitches, 72 of which went for strikes, with nine strikeouts in what was MLB¡¯s first perfect game since F¨¦lix Hern¨¢ndez threw one on Aug. 15, 2012, against the Rays in Seattle.
¡°He was throwing his changeup and breaking ball until he got two strikes,¡± Kotsay said. ¡°We hit a ton of balls to the pull side and didn¡¯t make one adjustment to try to hit a ball to the right side or just to the opposite field. That¡¯s what happens. When you try to pull soft. You¡¯re going to hit a lot of ground balls to the pull side and get weak contact. We didn¡¯t hit a ball hard tonight. You tip your cap to the performance.¡±
Statcast backs up Kotsay¡¯s statement about the lack of quality contact. Of the A¡¯s 18 balls hit in play against Germ¨¢n, the average exit velocity was 84.1 mph.
There weren¡¯t many close calls, either. Anthony Rizzo¡¯s diving stop at first base to smother a 106.5 mph grounder hit by Seth Brown in the fifth inning was the closest the A¡¯s really came to getting a hit. The groundout carried an expected batting average (xBA) of .480.
¡°He threw that curveball in any count that he wanted to,¡± A¡¯s second baseman Tony Kemp said of Germ¨¢n. ¡°It was spinning differently and moving differently. He put his fastball where he wanted to. Changeup as well. He just kind of mixed them. We got a couple of good swings off him, but no results.¡±
Kemp had the only other semi-threat to break through against Germ¨¢n in the fourth inning, when he drove a ball 349 feet to right that was struck 91.7 mph off the bat and was caught near the warning track by Giancarlo Stanton. Funny enough, that flyout would have been a home run at Yankee Stadium and nowhere else, according to Statcast.
¡°It felt good,¡± Kemp said. ¡°But in Oakland, you¡¯re not really getting your hopes up. I don¡¯t really have Stanton power.¡±
As frustrating as it is to be on the wrong end of such history, there really was no time for the A¡¯s to dwell with such a quick turnaround in the form of a Thursday afternoon series finale, which still presents the A¡¯s with a chance at a series victory over the Yankees after they took the first game on Tuesday.
¡°It¡¯s just another loss for us,¡± Kemp said. ¡°You just have to move on. At the end of the day, we¡¯re in the history books. Cool. Great. Nothing really more to say.¡±