Charlie’s News At Five – Extra Edition: Homer Bailey’s No Hitter
Firstly I would like to congratulate Homer Bailey on the second no hitter of his career.
On Tuesday 2nd July 2013, Homer Bailey of the Cincinnati Reds no hit the San Francisco Giants. For a while, it seemed, it could have been something even better.
Through the first to sixth innings, Bailey allowed no hits and was in the midst of a perfect game. His game plan had been executed as well as could be expected. Homer’s primary pitch is a fastball that can reach 97 miles per hour. For the first three innings, he threw it between 92 and95, only reaching his maximum velocity in the last three innings.
He used his fastball early in the count to get ahead of Giants hitters. He would then mix in his off speed pitches to keep the Giants off balance. Those of you who have seen Bailey pitch regularly will know that his go to off speed pitch is a slider, which reaches speeds in the the high 80’s, with good movement. The third major ball in his armoury is a split finger fastball.
Every no hitter seems to have one inning that is a turning point, which in some way decides the game. For Bailey it was the seventh.
Gregor Blanco walked to open the inning, dashing Homer’s perfect game hopes. Then later in the inning Buster Posey hit a one hop ball to Reds first baseman Joey Votto. Homer failed to react and cover first base as quickly as he should have done. Blanco was on second base and believing the play would go to first base, Gregor started to run to third. Seeing no chance of a play at first, Votto threw to the Reds third baseman Todd Frazier to easily strand Blanco in between the bases. The importance of this play was that if nobody had got an out, then Posey’s grounder would have counted as a hit, and the no hit bid would have been over.
There was one more obstacle in the seventh inning for Bailey. That came in the form of Pablo Sandoval. At his best Sandoval can be a nuisance, who can seemingly foul off pitches anywhere in the strike zone. In the at-bat of the night, Pablo did exactly that, managing to foul off pitches high in the zone and staying away from pitches outside the zone. The eighth pitch would be Sandoval’s waterloo, as Bailey threw a fastball high that Pablo missed, and therefore was called strike three.
Drama followed in the eighth when Andres Torres seemed to have made decent contact, but unfortunately for the Giants his timingwas slightly off, and it turned into a soft line drive to the outfield.
That was to be stormiest period that Bailey would have to get through.The ninth inning was pretty straight forward, although when Homer pitched to Blanco for the final out, he made decent contact on the 109th pitch of the night, but his grounder went straight to the Reds third baseman Frazier who made a straightforward throw to first base for the final out – Bailey’s masterpiece was complete.
After the game, Tim Lincecum the Giants starting pitcher, who took the loss against Bailey was in awe of Homer’s ability to throw pitches at 97 mph in the ninth inning stating: “That’s live stuff man”.
Bruce Bochy the Giants manager, commented: “With the stuff he was throwing, I don’t know what team would have hit him tonight”.
On the Reds side, Jay Bruce showed, that just because it was Baileys second no hitter, it meant no less to the Reds than Baileys firs no hitter, saying: “It’s special every time. Even to be able to watch one at the stadium is awesome as a fan, much less to be part of two as a player. I’ll never forget it. From the same person, no less. It’s pretty awesome.”
Cincinatti second baseman, compared Homer to Dark Knight actor Christian Bale (Bailey looks similar to Bale) by stating: “I was like, ‘Wow, Homer.’ He let his inner-Batman out today”.
As for the man of the moment, Bailey summed up his thoughts, about what it meant for him to pitch a no-hitter in his home ballpark and also what was going through his head during the final out: “to be here in front of this crowd really meant a lot” Bailey said, “The ball went to Frazier, and any time it’s put in play in those situations, you get a little bit nervous. But once Joey squezed it, it was all over.”
Below I have also incuded some statistics about no hitters which some of you may be interested in.
– Homer Bailey is only the fourth current active pitcher, to have thrown multiple no-hitters. The others are Justin Verlander, Roy Halladay and Mark Buehrle.
– This was the 9th no hitter against a reigning world series champion team in MLB history.
– Only 5 pitchers have thrown consecutive no hitters, the last pitcher to do it was Nolan Ryan in 1975 and 1976.
– This was the first no hitter of 2013, by July 2nd 2012, there had already been five no hitters.
– Only 31 pitchers all-time, have thrown multiple no hitters.
– Out of multiple no hitter pitchers, Homer Bailey has the highest career ERA with 4.26.
– All time, the Cincinatti Reds rank 4th with 16 no hitters in MLB history, only the Boston Red Sox (19), Chicago White Sox (18) and Los Angeles Dodgers (20) have more.
To see video highlights of all 27 outs of this historic game, click here.