Padres’ Caratini gets MLB first: back-to-back no-nos, different teams

When hometown RHP Joe Musgrove threw the first nohitter for the San Diego Padres in their franchise history, Victor 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 Chicago Cubs at Milwaukee. The offseason acquisitions by the Padres got one together Friday night in a 3-0 win against the Rangers in Texas.

“I think it’s pretty rare to find yourself in those situations,” Caratini said Saturday. “Joe had everything working, had all of his pitches working.”

It was only the second start with the Padres for Musgrove, 28, the only player they got back as part of a three-team, seven-player trade in January after he pitched for Pittsburgh the past three seasons. Caratini, 27, also got to San Diego as part of a seven-player deal. He came with RHP Yu Darvish from the Cubs last December.

Padres manager Jayce Tingler gave Caratini credit for coaxing Musgrove through a historic performance. “When you start to connect the dots a little bit, to have two of them now ...” Tingler said, “He obviously receives well, calls a great game.”

There have been 10 other times when a starting catcher caught consecutive MLB nohitters, but all of those were for the same team, according to Elias Sports.