No hits, no prob: Pirates win with 0 hits

PITTSBURGH » In what’s quickly become a lost season for the Cincinnati Reds, this really was the ultimate misery.

Prized rookie Hunter Greene and reliever Art Warren combined to allow zero hits in a complete game, but it didn’t count as a no-hitter — or even a win.

Instead, the Pittsburgh Pirates eked out a run in the bottom of the eighth inning on three walks and a groundout for a 1-0 victory Sunday.

“It would have been great to have a different result, but it is what it is,” Greene said.

Ke’bryan Hayes’ RBI grounder helped the Pirates become the sixth team in big league history since 1901 to win despite not getting any hits. It last happened in 2008 when Jered Weaver and Jose Arredondo of the Angels lost while holding the Dodgers hitless.

By Major League Baseball record-keeping rules, Cincinnati’s accomplishment isn’t an official no-hitter because its pitchers didn’t go at least nine innings.

“Sometimes you win games in weird ways and today we won one in a weird way. And if it’s a part of history, that’s fine because it’s still a win,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said.

And in a year in which most everything has gone wrong for the

Reds, this surely had to be the topper as they fell to 9-26, the worst record in the majors.

Greene (1-6) was pulled after one-out walks in the eighth to Rodolfo Castro and Michael Perez. The 22-year-old righty threw 118 pitches, the most by any pitcher in the majors this year.

“He had no-hit stuff and it translated,” Shelton said.

Greene fired seven heaters at 100 mph or faster, and mixed in sharp sliders and effective changeups. He was totally aware of the possible no-hitter, too.

“To be honest, like in the third or fourth. But that’s the last thing I wanted to think about (because) it is really hard to just stay locked in and not think about those things,” Greene said.

“I had the scoreboard right in my face and I was trying not to make eye contact with it,” he said. “Everybody was giving me my space and knew that I was locked in.”

Toward the end, he admitted, he was out of gas.

“But then again, there’s the mental part of, you know, ‘I’m fine. I’m not tired,’” he said.

Said Reds manager David Bell: “Looking at it now, I think it would have to have gone really easy for him to go back out there for the ninth, but I think there was a chance he could have done it.”

Warren relieved and walked Ben Gamel to load the bases. Hayes followed with a grounder to second baseman Alejo Lopez, who bobbled the ball before throwing to shortstop Matt Reynolds for a forceout. Reynolds’ relay for a potential inning-ending double play was a fraction late to get the speedy Hayes at first base.

“Maybe in a perfect world that ball’s hit a little bit harder to make it a little bit easier for him,” Warren said. “I tried to do the best I could and get a ground ball there. It’s just one of those things where it didn’t go our way.”

Cincinnati batters then went down in order in the ninth and that was it at PNC Park — no celebration for the Reds despite the zero in Pittsburgh’s hit column.

“I mean, to not even get a hit in a game and to get a win, I’m sure that hasn’t happened a lot since baseball’s been going on,” Hayes said.

Mariners to miss players over vaccine. NEW YORK » Seattle Mariners manager Scott Servais said “a couple players” won’t make the trip for the three-game series that starts Monday at Toronto because of the Canadian government’s vaccine mandate.

Speaking before Sunday’s series finale at the New York Mets, Servais did not identify the players.

Canada requires anyone entering the country to have received two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine, the second at least 14 days before entry.

Plate ump leaves game after getting hit twice.

OAKLAND, CALIF. » Plate umpire Marty Foster left Sunday’s game between the Oakland Athletics and Los Angeles Angels after getting hit in the facemask a second time.

Foster was hit in the sixth inning by a foul ball from Kevin Smith and collapsed to the ground before being helped to his feet by A’s assistant athletic trainer Brian Schulman.

Foster remained in the game, but in the top of the seventh Oakland reliever Zach Jackson threw a low pitch that bounced up and hit Foster again. Second base umpire Scott Barry replaced Foster behind the plate.

Mets put RHP Megill on injured list.

NEW YORK » Right-hander Tylor Megill was placed on the 15day injured list by the New York Mets on Sunday because of right biceps tendinitis, four days after he allowed eight runs over 1L innings during a defeat at Washington.the Mets said the 26-year-old pitcher had an MRI and will take a few days off from throwing, then be reassessed later this week.