Hisashi Iwakuma threw the American League’s first no-hitter since 2012 as the Seattle Mariners blanked the Baltimore Orioles 3-0 on Wednesday night.
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TOKYO (AP) – Seattle Mariners starter Hisashi Iwakuma’s feat of becoming the second Japanese-born pitcher after Hideo Nomo to throw a no-hitter in the U.S. major leagues was splashed on the home pages of sports newspapers and other media websites in his home country, greeting people as they were waking up Thursday.
DODGERS 3, NATIONALS 0 Clayton Kershaw tied Sandy Koufax’s franchise record of six consecutive 200-strikeout seasons while tossing eight scoreless innings, and NL West-leading Los Angeles defeated visiting Washington. 411 with 13 home runs, 17 RBIs, 19 runs, six doubles and seven walks during the streak, also leads the majors with 140 hits as he bids to become the first player since Boston’s Jim Rice in 1978 to pace baseball in homers and hits. “But tip your cap”. He is a perennial groundball pitcher, but this season has been especially rough despite posting the second highest GB/FB ratio of his career.
Iwakuma, the subject of many trade rumors prior to the July 31 deadline, walked three and threw first-pitch strikes to 20 of the 29 batters he faced.
After his 11 6th pitch settled in Jackson’s glove, Iwakuma was mobbed by his teammates. Hernandez was wearing a fuzzy bear hat that was handed out as a promotion earlier in the season to honor Iwakuma.
“I was aware of [the no-hitter] obviously”, he said, “but I kind of felt it real deep in my heart in the ninth inning”. Nonetheless, Iwakuma rewarded the Mariners for their loyalty with his performance on Wednesday. He used a biting splitter and precise location to keep the Orioles guessing.
The Japan native was flawless sans the fourth inning, when he worked around walks to Manny Machado and Chris Davis to end the inning. Iwakuma’s pitch count reached 100 in the eighth inning, when he gave up a leadoff walk and had the tying run in the on-deck circle. But after striking out Ryan Flaherty looking, Iwakuma got Caleb Joseph to ground into a double play. Lough’s pop-up to foul territory resulted in an outstanding running, over-the-shoulder catch by Seattle third baseman Kyle Seager.
“As soon as I see the fly ball I was, ‘Oh my goodness, just catch, just catch, ‘ ” Sucre said.
“To be honest, I never thought I would accomplish a no-hitter”, Iwakuma said through interpreter Antony Suzuki. “In that situation, you’re not letting it get down if you can help it”.
Gausman allowed back-to-back run-scoring hits by Franklin Gutierrez and Robinson Cano with two outs in the third to fall behind, 2-0. In the fifth, Jesus Sucre doubled to score Austin Jackson.
Morrison said. “I know he had a good two-seamer (fastball) and was trying to get it away from me”.
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Nelson Cruz is not in the lineup for Seattle, a day after leaving the game against Baltimore with neck spasms.
