Cleveland is no-hit, Plesac is roughed up
Carlos Rodón and Zach Plesac compiled completely different pitching performances Wednesday night.
Rodón pitched a no-hitter to lead the Chicago White Sox to an 8-0 victory over Cleveland.
Plesac did not make it out of the first inning and was removed from the game with two outs.
Plesac’s outing came one day after Cleveland ace Shane Bieber pitched nine shutout innings in a 2-0 win in 10 innings.
“This has been the toughest game, day, of my entire career so far,” Plesac said after throwing 26 pitches and allowing six earned runs and seven hits. “Minor leagues, big leagues, high school, college, anything. It hurts, man.”
White Sox rookie Yermin Mercedes smacked a three-run home run with one out in the first inning. Leury García hit an RBI double and scored on Nick Madrigal’s single before Plesac exited from the shortest start of his major-league career.
“Balls were on too much of the plate,” Plesac said. “Balls were up . ... It wasn’t my night, man. From this time forward I am going to learn to get the ball down, man, and execute pitches.”
Plesac’s woes were overshadowed by Rodón, who struck out seven and almost pitched a perfect game.
Rodón was perfect before he hit Roberto Pérez on his back foot with an 0and-2 slider with one out in the ninth. The left-hander regained his composure and struck out Yu Chang looking and retired Jordan Luplow on a sharp groundball to third baseman Yoán Moncada.
Rodón’s no-hitter was the White Sox first since Lucas Giolito on Aug. 25 last year against Pittsburgh, and the 20th in franchise history, which is second-most in major league history behind the Los Angeles Dodgers.
“He kind of overwhelmed us,” Cleveland manager Terry Francona. “. . . When he is good, he gets stronger as the game goes on. You saw him touch 99 (miles per hour) on pitch 110, and his breaking ball got better and he even threw some changeups (as the game progressed). He got into a rhythm and just got stronger as the game went on.”
Cleveland outfielder Josh Naylor almost broke up the perfect game when he led off the ninth inning with a slow groundball to first baseman José Abreu. Naylor sprinted toward first and dove headfirst into the base just after Abreu stepped on the bag to record the out.
Rodón threw 75 of his 114 pitches for strikes. The No. 3 pick in the 2014 amateur draft out of North Carolina State recorded his first career shutout and second complete game.