I did something last week I hadn’t done in about five years.
Some friends and I headed down to Seattle to take in a couple of baseball games. We scheduled the trip so we could catch the Arizona Diamondbacks playing the Mariners the first day, then the Atlanta Braves started their series the next day.
The whole trip was a lot of fun, but the game against Atlanta was a highlight. It started with the two starting pitchers, Max Fried of the Braves and Bryce Miller of the Mariners, matching each other for the first six innings buy not giving up any hitters.
Let me repeat that for the people in the back row: For the first six innings, we had a DOUBLE no-hitter going. In the top of the seventh, Ronald Acuna Jr. led off for the Braves and was credited with a hit on a ball shortstop Dylan Moore was this close to getting to.
Last year, Acuna led the Majors with 73 stolen bases, so it wasn’t a big surprise this late in a scoreless game that he took off and stole second.
He got up and dusted himself off. Watching from the stands, I could see him walking toward third base, and Miller didn’t even look back at him.
As soon as Miller started his motion to the plate, Acuna was gone, stealing third without even a throw from the catcher.
The next batter, Ozzie Aviles, doubled, and Acuna trotted in with the game’s first run.
With a no-hitter through six innings, Fried did not take the mound for the bottom of the seventh. He has reached 100 pitches, and I suspect that was a pitch count which had been established for early-season games for him.
Seattle didn’t score in the seventh or eighth, so they came to the bottom of the ninth still trailing by a run (although they had gotten a hit in the eighth).
Jorge Polanco, the first batter for the Mariners in the bottom of the ninth, singled to put the tying run on base.
The next hitter was Mitch Garver, in his first season with the Mariners, and struggling at the plate.
He worked the count to three-and-two, then swung at the next pitch. As soon as he hit it, the Braves fielders started walking off the field. That ball was long gone, giving the Mariners a 2-1 win in the most dramatic way possible.
Quite a finish to the ball game, and something my friends and I were talking about all the way back to the hotel.