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On a night when Justin Verlander made a bid for his fourth career no-hitter, it was Reid Detmers, making just his 11th career start, who recorded the first singles no-hitter of the 2022 season.
Detmers dazzled in the angels‘ 12-0 victory over the Ray Tuesday night in Anaheim. In nine innings, he allowed just two baserunners: Taylor Walls led off the sixth with a walk and Brett Phillips reached on Jared Walsh’s error with one out in the seventh. Detmers had just two strikeouts, but he was efficient (108 pitches) and limited hard contact.
Detmers was the team’s No. 1-rated prospect when the season began and earned a spot in the rotation after spring training, but he struggled in his first five starts. The impact of his poor start was minimized because of the Angels’ potent offense and his stable rotation.
Kirby Lee/USA Today Sports
The no-hitter game was far from the only highlight for the Halos on Tuesday. Mike Trout went 3-for-4 with two home runs. The three-time MVP is slashing .337/.457/.726 and reminding everyone that he is still the best player in baseball. Shohei Ohtani, the most talented player in the game, had two hits one night after hitting two home runs, including his first career Grand Slam. Facing Phillips, an outfielder, Anthony Rendon, a right-handed hitter, hit left-handed in the bottom of the eighth inning with the game out of his reach and hit a 411-foot home run.
The Angels are in first place in the American League West and are have an absolute blast. They finally have the pitching needed to advance to the playoffs, and that staff will only get stronger as Detmers figures things out at the major league level. As exciting and historic as this no-hitter is for the Angels and the rookie, it’s just the beginning of what’s shaping up to be a special season in Anaheim.
Wendell Cruz/USA Today Sports
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The wildest thing that happened yankees‘ 6–5 victory over tiles Tuesday night wasn’t Aaron Judge’s three-run homer. It wasn’t that Toronto left-hander Yusei Kikuchi carried a no-hitter into the sixth inning. It wasn’t even what happened in the second inning, when Luis Severino yelled at the dugout from the mound to tell Aaron Boone not to take him out of the game, by which time he had already allowed three runs and thrown more than 60 pitches. .
Instead, the most ridiculous moment came in the sixth inning when Blue Jays reliever Yimi Garcia was ejected from the game without warning for hitting Josh Donaldson with a 0-1 fastball. Donaldson was the first batter Garcia faced after giving up a game-tying three-run home run to Giancarlo Stanton. Every time a hit batter follows a home run, there are some thoughts about whether the hitting was intentional. But any rational reading of the game made it clear that wasn’t the case with Garcia and Donaldson.
In fact, the only people who thought Garcia was trying to hit Donaldson with the pitch were the umpires.
“Deep in my heart, I don’t think it was [intentional],” Donaldson said, “but it didn’t look good on TV. That is sure.”
So what caused the expulsion? Crew chief Alfonso Marquez said Donaldson and Blue Jays catcher Tyler Heineman had exchanged “pretty strong words” earlier in the game.
The group reporter who spoke with Marquez asked why Garcia intentionally put Donaldson on base in the sixth inning of a 3-3 game immediately after giving up the lead. Marquez did not answer that specific question.
“Given all the situations up to that specific point in time, we just consider it intentional,” he said. “And when that happens, we have to expel or [issue] warnings, but we felt ejection was the way to go.”
It was absolutely not the way to go.
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