Once again Yu Darvish was down to the final out of a no-hit bid, and once again Darvish had the no-hitter broken up.
Slugging designated hitter David Ortiz came up with two outs in the ninth inning. By that point Darvish had thrown 126 pitches and had his no-hitter in tact due to a controversial error ruling in the 7th inning of this context (also off the bat of Ortiz).
Having logged strikeouts on nasty off-speed offerings to the hitters leading up to Ortiz, it looked like Darvish would have the goods to dig down and finish it. Instead Ortiz hit a ground ball hard to the right side that somehow found its way through the shift. With that Darvish lost a no-hitter with two outs in the final inning for the second time in as many seasons. The same thing happened against the Astros near the beginning of the 2013 season.
Here is Darvish’s final line: 8 2/3 innings, 12 Ks, zero runs, one walk, and that single base hit surrendered.
The wisdom with Darvish is that he’s a threat to throw a no-no each and every time he takes the hill. That is no mere cliche; his pitches are so nasty, and he has so many of them, that any night he has things rolling he could end up with a no-hitter or maybe even a perfect game. It seems only fair that if he gets close again in the future, the baseball gods will smile on Yu and let him finish the deal.