The Los Angeles Dodgers are far and away the best team in baseball right now, sitting at 89-36 in 2017. On Wednesday night Rich Hill had a chance to add some history to this season, taking a perfect game into the ninth.
The Los Angeles Dodgers had populated the basepaths a fair amount over the course of the first eight innings of Wednesday night’s instant classic from PNC Park. By the time Rich Hill took the mound in the bottom half of the ninth with the score knotted at zero, Los Angeles had collected eight hits and four walks and were 0-for-9 with runners in scoring position.
With a perfect game in hand and sitting well under 100 pitches, Rich Hill climbed atop the rubber. The first batter he faced was Jordy Mercer, who had just made one heck of a grab at short to end the top of the eighth inning. In the bottom of the eighth, Chase Utley made a terrific grab of his own on a liner to second off the bat of Josh Bell. All outstanding pitching accomplishments have that one play in the field late in the game. Hill now had his.
Mercer grounded the ball to Logan Forsythe, playing third, who bobbled the ball and ended Hill’s chance at perfection. Mercer was bunted over to second, putting one out on the board, a runner in scoring position and all of a sudden a base hit could not only end the still intact no-hit bid, but also give the lefty a loss. Hill got Jose Osuna and Starling Marte to ground out, stranding Mercer at second.
On to extras.
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As the announce team in Pittsburgh brought up, Dodger manager Dave Roberts had an interesting decision to make. Typically in extras, if you’re the road team (they were) and you score, you warm up your closer. However, with a no-hitter still intact, the very opposite was likely to be true. With a lead, Hill would have a chance to end the game with a historic feat instead of needing to remain nearly perfect to prolong the game while the offense got their act together.
The Dodgers didn’t score in the top of the tenth. The Los Angeles bullpen stayed quiet.
Hill took the mound in the bottom of the tenth having thrown 95 pitches. The fourth pitch of the at-bat with the first batter of the inning, Josh Harrison, ended up about two rows deep down the left field line, and the Jolly Roger was raised. The no-hitter and the game were both over with one swing of the bat.
This was the first time that a no-hitter had ever ended on a walk-off homer, per the L.A. Times. Rich Hill is now a part of history, though it’s not the part that anyone was necessarily hoping for.
If the ball that Mercer snagged in the eighth had gotten by, the Dodgers likely get a run on the play, and the no-hit bid, if not perhaps the perfect-o remain whole.
Last September Hill had a perfect game going, but due to his bout with blisters and the playoffs just around the corner, Dave Roberts took no chances, pulling the southpaw after seven perfect frames. It’s hard to see how that decision from nearly a year ago didn’t at least play a small role in tonight’s decision-making process.
Wins and losses don’t matter to this Dodgers team. They’re 53 games over .500 and could lose the rest of their games (five week’s worth) and likely still manage a Wild Card berth at the very least. From that standpoint, there is no hand-wringing over last night’s decision.
However, with the Dodgers’ starting staff being decimated by injuries, why risk losing yet another arm? Clayton Kershaw, Alex Wood and Yu Darvish are all on the disabled list. Their depth chart on MLB.com currently lists three starting pitchers where there should be five.
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The Dodgers have built their team and their depth around the “what if” game. What if Player A gets hurt? Oh, well we have B, C and D. But right now is crunch time, and all of those what ifs are more important with October looming. A, B and C are on the disabled list. What if Kershaw, Wood and Darvish aren’t back to full strength, if at all, for the playoffs? That would likely leave Hill as the Game 1 starter in the NLDS as the roster is currently constructed. At this point the focus should be on keeping the players healthy, personal stats be damned.
It’s just hard to say that to a guy in his late thirties two years in a row.