Not perfect enough: Hill flirts with rare gem, falls
Pirates end no-hit bid with home run in 10th
PITTSBURGH — Rich Hill’s first 98 pitches left the Pittsburgh Pirates confounded, occasionally fuming and absolutely hitless.
His 99th turned a potentially historic night by the Los Angeles Dodgers left-hander into something else entirely:
A loss.
After Hill’s bid for a perfect game was spoiled by a leadoff error in the ninth inning, Josh Harrison started the 10th by connecting on an 88 mph fastball over the middle of the plate and sending a drive into the first row of seats in left field.
It wrecked Hill’s improbable — and improbably lengthy — try at a no-hitter and lifted the Pirates to a 1-0 win Wednesday.
“It falls on me, this one — one bad pitch,” Hill said.
Dodgers left fielder Curtis Granderson made a fearless attempt to preserve the no-hitter, banging into the wall going for a catch. When the ball sailed inches past his outstretched glove, Harrison sprinted around the bases after his 16th home run while Hill (9-5) slowly walked off the field after being handed his first loss in nearly two months.
“I hit it, and I knew I didn’t get it all,” Harrison said. “I knew I got enough.”
Just enough on a night Hill flirted with the 24th perfect game in major league history.
His shot at joining one of the majors’ most exclusive clubs ended when third baseman Logan Forsythe couldn’t handle Jordy Mercer’s grounder opening the ninth.
Hill retired the next three batters, and manager Dave Roberts sent the 37-year-old Hill out for the 10th, a makeup call of sorts after Hill was pulled after seven innings and 89 pitches of perfection against Miami in September.
It turned out to be one batter too many, though Hill and Roberts tried to downplay their disappointment.
Hill remains in the middle of a late-career renaissance in Los Angeles, and his flirtation with perfection is the latest sign his stuff — built on precision rather than power — still can get batters out with efficiency.
Seattle ace Felix Hernandez threw the majors’ most recent perfect game, in 2012 against Tampa Bay. Since then, three pitchers have lost perfect game tries with two outs in the ninth — Yu Darvish for Texas and Yusmeiro Petit for San Francisco in 2013 and Max Scherzer for Washington in 2015.
Miami’s Edinson Volquez has pitched the majors’ lone no-hitter this year, in June against Arizona.
Hill became the first pitcher since Pedro Martinez in 1995 to take a no-hit try into extra innings. Martinez, then with Montreal, lost his perfect game in the 10th at San Diego. Hill finished nine innings with a “0” in the hit column, but it doesn’t count as an official no-no.
Under Major League Baseball rules, a pitcher must complete the game — going nine innings isn’t enough if it goes into extras. In 1959, a Pirates pitcher had perhaps the most famous near-miss of all when Harvey Haddix lost his perfect game and the game itself in the 13th at Milwaukee.