South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
Catching history behind the plate
ARLINGTON, Texas — Victor Caratini is a no-no catcher.
When hometown pitcher Joe Musgrove threw the first no-hitter for the Padres in their franchise history, Caratini became the first MLB catcher to be behind the plate for consecutive no-hitters in the league for different teams.
“He was the first one to embrace me,” Musgrove said of Caratini. “And it just felt good. I know he wanted that as bad as I did.”
While Musgrove had never thrown a no-hitter at any level, Caratini was on the receiving end last Sept. 13 when Alec Mills threw one for the Cubs against the Brewers. The offseason acquisitions by the Padres got one together Friday night in a
3-0 win against the Rangers in Texas.
“Just super happy. I think it’s pretty rare to find yourself in those situations,” Caratini said Saturday through a translator. “Joe had everything working, had all of his pitches working.”
It was only the second start with the Padres for the 28-year-old Musgrove, the only player they got back as part of a threeteam, seven-player trade in January after he pitched for the Pirates the past three seasons.
Caratini also got to San Diego as part of a sevenplayer deal. The 27-yearold catcher came with right-hander Yu Darvish from the Cubs last December for right-hander Zach Davies and four minor leaguers.
Musgrove described Caratini as “a scientist” who was calculating between innings what they were about to face in the Rangers lineup, and figuring out when to be aggressive and when to try to save a few pitches. Padres manager Jayce Tingler gave Caratini credit for coaxing the big right-hander through a historic performance while certainly benefiting from the recent experience of catching another no-hitter.
“When you start to connect the dots a little bit, to have two of them now, and as quickly as he’s had them,” Tingler said Saturday. “He obviously receives well, calls a great game . ... Just being able to be on the same page, and you can’t really do that without getting in a flow. And so there’s got to be a ton of trust with both sides there. And I think Victor has won over the trust of a lot of those pitchers.”
There have been 10 other times when a starting catcher caught consecutive MLB no-hitters, but all of those were for the same team, according to Elias Sports. The last was the Reds’ Ryan Hanigan when Homer Bailey held the Giants without a hit July 2, 2013, after doing the same to the Pirates on Sept. 28, 2012.
The Dodgers were the last MLB team responsible for consecutive no-hitters. That was in 2014, but A.J. Ellis was behind the plate for Clayton Kershaw’s against the Rockies less than a month after Drew Butera caught Josh Beckett’s no-no against the Phillies.
Caratini was already one of eight catchers from Puerto Rico to be part of a no-hitter, but now has joined Hall of Famer Ivan “Pudge” Rodriguez as the only ones to catch two of them.
“Super proud to be on that same list, to be in that company as Ivan. He is one of my idols,” Caratini said.