Posted on 06/28/2023 9:34:10 PM PDT by TBP
OAKLAND -- Domingo Germán tossed Major League Baseball's first perfect game since 2012 in the Yankees' 11-0 win over the A's on Wednesday night at the Coliseum. It was the fourth perfect game in franchise history, and the first since David Cone against the Expos in 1999.
After allowing 17 runs (15 earned) over 5 1/3 innings in his previous two starts, Germán entered Wednesday with the potential to make the wrong kind of history by becoming just the fifth pitcher in franchise history to allow seven-plus runs in three straight games.
Instead, Germán snapped a streak of another kind with his historic night. The A's had not been no-hit since July 13, 1991, in a combined effort by four Orioles pitchers, which was the longest active streak in the Majors.
It's the 24th perfect game in AL/NL history and the first since Félix Hernández threw one on Aug. 15, 2012, against the Rays in Seattle.
The last time an opposing pitcher was perfect against the A's? May 5, 1904, when Cy Young and the Boston Americans went 27 up, 27 down against the Philadelphia Athletics.
Germán joins Cone, David Wells (May 17, 1998 vs. Twins) and Don Larsen (Oct. 8, 1956, in Game 5 of the World Series vs. Brooklyn Dodgers) as Yankees pitchers to throw perfect games.
Germán's big night began with a career milestone, his 500th strikeout, which perhaps hinted at more good things to come later on.
The 30-year-old right-hander did not seem to miss a beat throughout the evening, even when the Yankees batted around in a six-run top of the fifth inning that lasted more than 20 minutes. Germán got through the bottom half of that frame on 10 pitches, displaying a remarkable efficiency that lasted all the way to the final out.
Germán needed just 99 pitches to record all 27 outs, striking out nine A's batters.
No perfecto would be complete without a critical play to preserve the bid, and Anthony Rizzo supplied just that for the Yankees when he dove to his left to smother a 106.5 mph grounder off the bat of Seth Brown in the bottom of the fifth. Rizzo snared it, then flipped it to Germán at first for the out.
Rizzo also made a nice grab on a throw from third baseman Josh Donaldson that veered slightly wide to end the eighth inning, stretching across the bag but managing to keep his foot down to retire Oakland's Jonah Bride.
Technically it should be the 25th perfect game in MLB history.
That’s impressive.
“No matter how awful or mundane the world seems, sometimes something comes along to really brighten things up.”
It would be a lot better if the Yankees were not supporting the The Stonewall Inn Gives Back Initiative with part of their gate throughout June of this season. A real manly sport.
wy69
Somewhere back in the 70’s there was a cartoon of George Steinbrenner being always followed by a man in a suit carrying a special briefcase, like the President. Inside the briefcase were the special codes used by Steinbrenner to fire Billy Martin. Not so funny in describing it but the cartoon was hilarious.
Meh, who doesn’t pitch a perfect game against the A’s? ;)
Since they ditched Kate Smith, the Yankees are dead to me.
Yankees Suck!
Agreed.
I’ve been watching Saturday matchups on FOX.
👍
Wow! If there’s ever an umpire’s decision that should be reversed after the game, that’s it.
Needs an asterisk in the stat book noting that this was against the 2023 Oakland A’s.
On Saturday afternoon, May 1, 1920, Leon Cadore of the Brooklyn Dodgers and Joe Oeschger of the Boston Braves each pitched 26 innings. This being before lights at the ballpark, the game was called for darkness and ended in a 1-1 tie.
If I were Commissioner, I would overturn that call.
There is another game sometimes listed, from the early 1900s. Babe Ruth was the starting pitcher and walked a batter, then was thrown out of the game (must have been for disputing the umpire's call that the pitch was a ball). The runner was thrown out trying to steal second and the pitcher who replaced Ruth was perfect for the rest of the game.
Jim Bunning pitched a perfect game in 1964--he was later a Republican senator from Kentucky.
There was a cartoon about the A’s moving to Las Vegas recently. Two people, evidently Las Vegas residents, are talking about the move, when one of them asks, “Doesn’t Las Vegas already have a minor league team?”
No w Pirchers can barely go 6.
Can you find it?
“The g_d damned Germans got nothing to do with it!” Sheriff Buford T. Justice of Texarkana, Texas.
I tried to find it again a couple of days later and didn’t have any luck.
The first pitcher named German to pitch a perfect game, but Mark Buehrle had a perfect game and his surname looks German.
Locals were calling them the "Triple A's" way back in the early Eighties, before the Henderson/Canseco/McGuire years. :)
Toronto might have managed it in 1994 except for the players' strike which resulted in there being no World Series that year.
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