Houston Astros: Pitching goes immaculate twice in same game
By West Jones
About the time that you think you have seen everything that there is to witness in a Major League Baseball game, something new occurs. One of those new feats happened on Wednesday in Arlington, Texas, in a game between the Houston Astros and the Texas Rangers.
The Houston Astros recorded not one, but two immaculate innings in the same game. That is the first time in the history of the game that this has occurred.
An immaculate inning is one in which the pitcher strikes out all three of the hitters using the minimum number of nine pitches to accomplish the task. Also, an immaculate inning is when a relief pitcher comes into a game with nobody out and then records the three outs on nine pitches to the three batters that he faces.
Houston Astros starter Luis Garcia started the immaculate run by striking out Nathaniel Lowe, Ezequiel Duran, and Brad Miller on nine straight strikes in the bottom half of the second inning. After Garcia was pulled after the sixth, Astros reliever Phil Maton came in to pitch the home half of the seventh inning.
In an interesting twist of events, Maton proceeded to put his name in the record book with his own immaculate inning by striking out the exact same three Rangers hitters, on nine pitches, that Garcia had struck out in the second inning.
Yes, you read that correctly. Lowe, Duran, and Miller all three were strikeout victims on nine pitches total, not just in one immaculate inning, but in two. That is truly remarkable!
In defense of Duran, in his seventh-inning at-bat, he was rung up on a pitch that appeared to be outside, but the record book will show it as a strikeout looking, and thus not one, but two immaculate innings for Astros pitchers in one game.
The two immaculate innings today, were the 107th and 108th time that they have occurred in Major League Baseball. The first such inning happened on June 4, 1889, when John Clarkson of the Boston Beaneaters used nine pitches to strikeout three Philadelphia Quakers. There has been one other immaculate inning thrown this year. That one was posted by New York Yankee lefty, Nestor Cortes on April 17 against the Baltimore Orioles.
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Two immaculate innings in one game today was a new record. Not only did the Astros get the 9-2 victory, but Garcia and Maton also got to add their names to the history books. Unfortunately for Lowe, Duran, and Miller, so did they.