Phillies’ Aaron Nola gives up first career home run to AL pitcher
By Mike Dyce
Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Aaron Nola gives up a home run to an American League pitcher in his debut.
National League pitchers hitting home runs aren’t necessarily out of the ordinary, they step to the plate on a regular basis. American League pitchers hitting home runs on the other hand are more rare.
In fact, no AL pitcher has hit a home run since Zach Britton of the Baltimore Orioles in early July of 2011. And to really blow your mind, just 17 AL pitchers have homered in the interleague play era according to the Baseball-Reference Play Index. There have been more perfect games thrown than AL pitchers hitting home runs.
Well Tampa Bay Rays pitcher Nathan Karns joined that elite group but hitting a home run of Philadelphia Phillies’ Aaron Nola.
To make matters worse, it was Nola’s Major League Baseball debut and Karns delivered with a pretty spectacular bat flip to put the exclamation point on it. It is also Karns’ first hit.
That’s right, Karns had zero career hits before that solo home run. Makes you wonder when he was practicing all those bat flips.
Hopefully Nola doesn’t let this get to him and he bounces back.
And Karns home run accomplished a few other mile stones.
Before @NathanKarns tonight, no pitcher (AL or NL) had ever homered, accounting for the only run of a 1-0 victory in interleague play!
— Tampa Bay Rays (@RaysBaseball) July 22, 2015
In 20,223 games in Phillies franchise history, tonight is 1st time they lost a game 1-0 on a HR by the opposing pitcher
— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) July 22, 2015
(@EliasSports)
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