The Mariners used six pitchers to no-hit the Dodgers in Seattle on Friday for the 10th combined no-hitter in MLB history. Mariners reliever Tom Wilhelm came in to pitch the 9th to save the 1-0 game, and his inning involved a controversy.
Dodgers shortstop and leadoff hitter Dee Gordon was the first batter of the inning, and he was called out on a close play at first. Gordon was jammed and hit a broken-bat flare to shortstop Brendan Ryan who threw onto first. It was a bang-bang play at the bag, the kind where the “tie goes to the runner” rule generally applies, but Gordon was called out.
In the screencap above, it appears as if Gordon’s foot touched the bag just before the ball arrived in first baseman Justin Smoak’s mitt.
While I don’t believe in rules being bent or favors being done so pitchers can achieve milestones like no-hitters and perfect games, I will say that if the Dodgers needed a broken-bat infield flare to get their first hit, they deserved to be embarrassed.
The no-hitter was the third in Mariners’ history, and first time the Dodgers were no-hit since 1994.
