NO-HITTER
hard fall to the turf.
“I thought I broke my ankle,” he kidded after the game.
Alas, that was the only hit the Diamondbacks got. Luckily for Volquez, body blows don’t show up in the scorebook.
“I have faith in God,” Fuentes said. “And if there was a plan for Volquez, today was his day.”
The 33-year-old righty was one of the pitchers the Marlins brought in this past offseason in part to fill the void caused by the death of ace Jose Fernandez, who died in a boat crash last September.
Fernandez was very much on Volquez’s mind Saturday.
So was Yordano Ventura, the Kansas City pitcher who was killed in a car crash in the Dominican Republic in January. Saturday would have been Ventura’s 26th birthday. He and Volquez were not just countrymen, but close friends.
“It was special for me to dedicate the game to him,” Volquez said.
Volquez’s first season in Miami started about as badly as possible; the Marlins lost eight of his first nine starts and Volquez dropped his first seven decisions.
Yet on this day, he was nearly perfect.
“Just a lot of things lined up,” Marlins manager Don Mattingly said. “And his stuff was really, really good.”
Nick Ahmed — who broke up a no-hit bid by Milwaukee’s Chase Anderson in the eighth inning one week earlier — led off the ninth for Arizona and struck out on four pitches. Pinch-hitter Daniel Descalso came up, and after falling behind 2-0 in the count, Volquez stopped for a moment, composed himself with a deep breath, and eventually got the strikeout.
That left it up to Owings, another pinch-hitter. Strike one. Strike two. And then came a swing and a miss at a change-up for strike three, one that got away from catcher J.T. Realmuto for a brief moment before he fired to Justin Bour at first as the Marlins swarmed the field in celebration.
“Great mentor, great leader on the team,” Realmuto said, as three workers on the field dug up the rubber for Volquez. “It’s really awesome to see a guy like that get an accomplishment like this.”
It was the Marlins’ first no-hitter since Henderson Alvarez pitched one against Detroit on the final day of the 2013 regular season.
“It’s always a special moment,” Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo said. “Something’s going right.”
Bour had two hits and two RBIs for the Marlins, Giancarlo Stanton scored twice and Christian Yelich and Marcell Ozuna both had two hits. Miami gave Volquez two insurance runs in the eighth, though they were hardly needed.
Randall Delgado (1-1) gave up six hits and one run in 5 1/3 innings for Arizona.
Volquez threw a onehitter for San Diego against Houston in 2012 — the only blemish that night coming on a fourth-inning infield single by the Astros’ Matt Downs. A no-no bid for Pittsburgh in 2014 snapped on a leadoff single in the seventh by Cincinnati’s Devin Mesoraco.
The Marlins’ defense came up big for him in the fourth. Dee Gordon dove left to snare a grounder by Fuentes for the first out — “he saved the no-hitter right there,” Volquez said — and Bour tagged out Paul Goldschmidt after a throw by shortstop JT Riddle came in high. Goldschmidt was called safe at first, and it would have been an error anyway, but the play was overruled after review anyway.
Volquez is the epitome of a baseball journeyman. The Marlins are his seventh franchise in his 13 big league seasons, and he came into Saturday with just a 90-86 career record.
He was an All-Star in 2008, when he went 17-6 with Cincinnati. In 2015, Volquez helped Kansas City win the World Series crown and started Game 1 on the same day his father died.
“This is one of those days, you didn’t know what was going to happen,” Volquez said. “And today I had a nohitter.”
CARDIFF, Wales — After another potent demonstration of Cristiano Ronaldo’s enduring scoring prowess, surely no Real Madrid fan can contemplate criticizing him now.
Particularly after the world player of the year ensured Madrid pulled off one of soccer’s hardest feats, becoming the first team to successfully defend their Champions League title.
The fans who irritated Ronaldo so much ahead of Saturday’s final due to their whistling were silenced in emphatic style with two goals in a 4-1 victory over Juventus that gave Madrid a record-extending 12th European crown.
“People don’t have words to criticize,” Ronaldo said, “because the numbers don’t lie.”
They certainly don’t after another incredible season, even at the age of 32.
“My age is just a number,” Ronaldo said. “I feel like a young boy.”
At the end of the 25th season of the Champions League, Ronaldo is the first player to score in the three of the competition’s finals. And having lifted the European Cup once with Manchester United, Ronaldo has done it three times in four seasons with Madrid.
It’s the latest piece of silverware in an incredible 12 months for the forward.
It began with Ronaldo winning his first title with Portugal at the European Championship. Then came the Club World Cup with Real Madrid and the end of a five-year Spanish title drought before new highs were reached in the Champions League.
His career goal tally in club and international soccer now stands at 600.
Ronaldo’s first strike at Millennium Stadium was canceled out by Mario Mandzukic’s exquisite 27th-minute hook shot. It was the only high point for Juventus on a night when the Italian champion was outclassed in its quest for a first European title in 21 years.
Madrid’s supremacy was clear in the second half.
After Casemiro put the Spanish champions back in front in the 61st, Ronaldo turned in the third at the near post inside three minutes, and Marco Asensio wrapped up the scoring in the 90th.
Juventus conceded more goals on the night than it had on the journey to the final, having let in only three in the previous three games.
“In the second half Real Madrid pushed the accelerator,” Juventus coach Massimiliano Allegri said, “and we remained too static and sat back too long.”
Madrid’s attacking brilliance proved too hard for Juventus to contain, giving Zinedine Zidane his second Champions League title in 18 months of top-flight management.
“Zidane believes in us a lot,” Ronaldo said. “He knows that we are a very good team and that is why we proved it in the second half.”
Until now, no team since AC Milan in 1989 and 1990, when the cup was only a knockout competition, had won back-to-back titles.
Madrid had a lot to thank Keylor Navas for in the opening minutes. The goalkeeper blocked a header and strike from Gonzalo Higuain, and produced a one-handed save when Miralem Pjanic picked a gap through a crowd of defenders.
One of the first things Navas’ counterpart, Gianluigi Buffon, had to do was pick the ball out of his net.
It was the culmination of a counterattack of breathtaking speed launched by Luka Modric and Toni Kroos. Karim Benzema picked up possession and passed to Ronaldo. The world player of the year knocked the ball across to Dani Carvajal on the right flank before drifting into the penalty area to receive it back and beat Buffon.
But within seven minutes, Ronaldo was shaking his head with a scowl after seeing an equalizer of individual brilliance.
Leonardo Bonucci’s deep ball was brought down by Alex Sandro, who cut it back to Higuain in the penalty area. With his back to goal, Mandzukic received the chipped pass from Higuain and used his chest to control the ball before hooking it over his shoulder into the far top corner.