A little over a decade ago, I was still establishing a new family and a new environment. Unfortunately for the sports fan in me, its delegation was relegated to the minivan’s backseat and could only watch the highlights afterwards when Johan Santana threw the Mets’ first and the franchise’s only no-hitter. So it is with absolute envy that I write after Yankees’ veteran starter Domingo German authored a perfect game.
As a Mets fan, you must appreciate pitching. It’s one of the few things that we have as a franchise that has stuck from the beginning and throughout. Tom Seaver is nicknamed The Franchise for a reason, hence the statue outside Citi Field.
Forever 4️⃣1️⃣. #LGM pic.twitter.com/GtOchbEzGq
— New York Mets (@Mets) April 15, 2022
Seaver finished with three Cy Youngs, but his only no-hitter was thrown wearing Cincinnati Red. Jacob deGrom has three Cy Young awards, but the closest was before he was heralded. It was July 17, 2016 when a young mullet-haired deGrom finished with this pitching line against the Phillies.
9 innings, 7 strikeouts, 0 runs, 1 walk, 1 hit.
The thing about this complete game shutout in which deGrom threw 105 pitches is the lone hit happened in the third inning in a classic 20th century twist. It was a ground ball up the middle by opposing pitcher Zach Efflin. He was hitting .231 at the time and finished the year with a .261 average. That’s 40 points clear of Pete Alonso right now, but I digress…
I feel alone in remembering R.A. Dickey and his excellence for a brief period. Is it considered the early teens when describing 2010 to 2019? It’s not the Aughts because that’s 2000 to 2009. According to the Google machine, it could be the Twenty-Tens or just the Tens. It’s easy to forget because the team wasn’t very good during that time. With the exception of the World Series run in 2015, there were many mediocre seasons. So the star that was Dickey shined even brighter in my mind’s eye.
Long story short, Dickey consistently threw a knuckleball between 75-79 MPH. That doesn’t sound like much unless you know the average knuckleball at that time was thrown about 45-55 MPH. With his variation of the pitch and his ability to ‘control’ it, he was the lone reason to watch the Mets in the Tens. And his greatest feat still falls short of perfection.
During his magical Cy Young season, Dickey became the first pitcher in MLB history to throw back-to-back complete games while striking out 10 or more hitters and allowing one or fewer hits. He set a new Mets franchise record of 322⁄3 consecutive scoreless innings, besting Jerry Koosman's 312⁄3 in 1973. I use the strange fraction because both Wikipedia and the New York Times use this terminology, but their AI bots don’t realize that Koosman’s record was 31 and ⅔ innings.
Dickey would go 44 ⅔ innings without allowing an earned run, falling short of the franchise record for that set by The Doctor during his 1985 Cy Young season. Dwight Gooden came up through the Mets’ minor league system, but even he was wearing a different jersey when he threw a no-hitter. Want to guess what he was wearing at the time?
So congratulations to Domingo Germán for throwing the 24th perfect game in the long and storied history of Major League Baseball. When you just think about the numbers of opportunities for every pitcher for every franchise; I’m sincerely envious of that one moment of perfection not happening in a Mets uniform and that’s the truth.
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