Yes to No
There's an amusing thing in this tale, even if your not a baseball fan. But first, the background.
Last night, I was watching some of the early innings of the Chicago Cubs game against the Los Angeles Dodgers, but had some other things to do, so I left. I came back later -- around the fourth inning -- to check things out and planned to watch an inning or two before I got back to my other activity. But I noticed that the Cubs hadn't yet given up a base hit, so I knew I couldn't leave until the no-hitter was broken up -- or not. And so, I kept watching. And continued to watch through the final out because four Cubs pitchers together threw a no-hitter and won by a score of 4-0.
What was more notable is that in the 145 year history of the Cubs in the National League, it was the team's 17th no-hitter...but the first time ever that they'd thrown a "combined" no-hitter with more than one pitcher on the mound.
Making this all the funnier is that none of the three Cubs relief pitcher had any idea that there was a no-hitter going on when they were on the mound! Zach Devies started the game and pitched six innings, and then the three relievers were Ryan Tepera, Andrew Chafin and Craig Kimbrel.
Chaifin came in second, for the eighth inning. After he got the side out hitless, he was done for the night and so went to the Cubs clubhouse. “I’m sitting there with a couple of trainers," he said, "and there was a stat on the bottom of the TV saying something about there’s been six no-hitters already this yea. I started talking to them about it and then I turned around and they both went looking in the opposite direction." There is a baseball tradition not to talk about a no-hitter when it's in progress, so as not to "jinx" anything. But Chafin didn't know there was a no-hitter in program -- although everyone in the clubhouse did, which is why they all looked away from him. “Then I was like, ‘Wait a second, why would they be showing that stat at this point in the game?" Which is when he added, "‘Oh, [expletive], I might’ve just ruined it for us.’ But yeah, it worked out."
Even when closer Kimbrel entered the game, he didn't know either. “When Willie [Cubs catcher Willson Contrerar] gave a big fist bump, I knew something was up,” Kimbrel said. “And [Ryan] Tepera ran out there and whispered and he’s like, ‘You have no idea what happened.’ And then [Javier Báez] put me in a headlock. I had no clue when I came into the game that we had a no-hitter.”
Odd as it might be that none of the relievers knew there was a no-hitter going on, as the Chicago Tribune explained -- "The location of the visitors bullpen near the right-field corner at Dodger Stadium creates a limited view of the scoreboard. The Cubs pen could see the count, number of outs and some statistics, but the hit column was obstructed. The TV in the bullpen wasn’t any help, either. It showed an overhead view of the field because of MLB’s video rules. Plus, there are no box-score features on the screen."
And as Kimbrel added, the relievers in the bullpen could see that there were a lot of Dodgers on the bases during the game. "When you have a lot of traffic on the bases," he said, "you don’t really get as consumed that they’re all walks. You figure, well, maybe one of them is a single or something like that. But that wasn’t the case.”
I also thought of one other thing -- you'd think that someone would have told the relievers what was going on, at the very least when they came in to pitch. But I realized that no one would likely mention to them that there's a no-hitter in progress, since doing so would be against baseball tradition and "jinx" things.
Here's the last out, with Kimbrel striking out pinch-hitter Will Smith for the final out. You'll notice that when catcher Contreras pumps his fist in great excitement, Kimbrel himself is stoic, as if he couldn't care less. But when the camera eventually cuts back to him, mobbed by teammates at the 1:34 mark, his face is covered with a huge smile, since he's by then been told.
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