Amazing accomplishments take more than one guy. #MadMax #NOHITTER #Buffalo #Teammates pic.twitter.com/cAfHCmX4m3
— Washington Nationals (@Nationals) October 4, 2015
17 strikeouts for the night. Scherzer struck out 9 of the last 10 Mets batters. The Mets brought out pinch-hitters and to no avail. When Yoenis Cespedes walked into the on-deck circle to pinch-hit to lead-off the 9th inning, Scherzer thought to himself, “Let’s go. It’s on.”
One of 6 pitchers in MLB history to throw 2 no-hitters in one season. This was the 2nd highest Pitcher Game Score stat in history at 104 point. Only Kerry Wood eclipsed that at 105, and that was for a one-hitter.
Here’s the formula for a pitcher’s Game Score:
- Start with 50 points.
- Add one point for each out recorded, so three points for every complete inning pitched.
- Add two points for each inning completed after the fourth.
- Add one point for each strikeout.
- Subtract two points for each hit allowed.
- Subtract four points for each earned run allowed.
- Subtract two points for each unearned run allowed.
- Subtract one point for each walk.
50+27+10+17=104 (Scherzer should probably get extra credit for the routine grounder induced that turned into an error)
By the way, Wilson Ramos joined 13 other catchers who have caught 3 or more no-hitters during the regular season (Baseball Almanac lists 14 other pitchers). The record is 4 by Jason Varitek and Carlos Ruiz had 3 in the regular season and caught 1 in the playoffs. Of note, Ruiz and Yogi Berra caught no-hitters in the post-season which is debatable how you can count those towards regular season stats.
Here’s some great videos from MLB.com
Click here to view the Scherzer Post-game News Conference
Video: All 27 outs + the error
Video: Compilation with audio from Charlie & Dave & FP & Carp
Max Scherzer is a classy guy. After he won the Cy Young he bought his catcher Brayan Pena a nice Rolex watch:
After Scherzer’s 1st no-hitter he bought Wilson Ramos a watch with a cool nickname and a $25,000 retail price made by Hublot and called the Big Bang Aero Bang in black on black. Pictured below Ramos is wearing the watch with other bling that his pitchers have gifted to him in their esteemed appreciation.
What do you buy your catcher after a no-hitter encore? We didn’t ask Ramos for his answer, but got a text message from Ramos after the game where he said, “This is a happy night for Max and our team. Happy for what we done together”.
Other small details from tonight was Wilson Ramos had the GW RBI and made the score 1-0 and Dan Uggla added the insurance HR for the final tally in a 2-0 game. Of note, only 2 of the 11 balls put in play were defensively challenging and both were fielded by Dan Uggla who became the emergency fill-in at 2nd base when Wilmer Difo broke his finger sliding head-first into 1st base for the 1st hit of the day.
Here is the Uggla play after the fielding error by Yunel Escobar: Video: Uggla Makes A Slick Defensive Play Uggla on Scherzer, “He’s a pretty cool dude man.”
The handshake thing that Ramos and Scherzer do are as choreographed as their pre-game bullpen sessions with different hand gestures that Scherzer won’t publicly disclose what it all means Click here to view: Pre-Game Bullpen session before 1st no-hitter . Octavio Martinez who is the bullpen catcher is part of the pre-game bullpen choreography as he stands near Ramos. It is a sight to see.
After the 1st and this 2nd no-hitter, Scherzer was greeted by his happy catcher and Scherzer told him, “Let’s do our handshake” and they do it perfectly in sync. “We have our handshake before we do every game. Do it after we get a complete game to do it with Wily.”
Photo credit: ( Kathy Kmonicek /Associated Press) All rights reserved.
X-FACTOR: 3 of the past 8 @MLB no-hitters have featured @Nationals catcher Wilson Ramos behind the dish. pic.twitter.com/RaDtHY7kIU
— MLB Stats (@MLBStats) October 4, 2015
