Kansas City Royals left-hander Danny Duffy has held the Tampa Bay Rays hitless through seven innings.
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Duffy flirted with the Royals’ first no-hitter in almost 25 years before giving up a double to Desmond Jennings leading off the Tampa Bay eighth.
His 16 strikeouts broke the record of 15 set by Zack Greinke in 2009 against Cleveland, and also set a Tropicana Field record.
“There’s been a number of occasions when Danny’s stepped on the mound and I said this might be the night”, Royals manager Ned Yost said. “He had everything going”.
It was just the 47th time in Major League Baseball history that a pitcher had 16 or more strikeouts with one walk or less. “It was one of the few-and-far-between times that somebody has all of their pitches working the way they want”.
“(The Trade Deadline) didn’t carry over for me”, said Archer.
The Rays’ Chris Archer matched zeroes into the seventh inning, but ended up giving up three runs. The Rays were playing with only 23 players – just a two-man bench – due to three trades made before the game.
Alcides Escobar had an RBI single in a two-run eighth that put Kansas City up 3-0.
Duffy would leave the game after eight innings while Kelvin Herrera go the save by pitching a scoreless ninth inning.
The Royals’ last no-hitter came almost 25 years ago, when Bret Saberhagen no-hit the White Sox on August 26, 1991. He was six outs away from no-hitting the Rays for the sixth time.
Duffy struck out 12 and allowed his only baserunner when Logan Forsythe walked on a 3-2 pitch leading off the fourth Monday night. He will now be the everyday third baseman. The Royals have been up and down this season and are six games under the.500 mark heading into this game but they are by no means out of a wild card berth at this point as there is plenty of baseball left to be played and they are the reigning champions for a reason despite an overhaul from last year’s group.
The last-place Rays traded Moore, OF Brandon Guyer and INF/OF Steve Pearce – all to teams that were in first place – on Monday.
Matt Andriese will pitch for the Rays tonight against Yordano Ventura. That will shift current SS Brad Miller to either first base or the outfield.
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Jennings came off the disabled list Monday after missing all of July with a strained hamstring. He remained in the game as a defensive replacement in left field.
