Up until this season, Nick Pivetta hadn't sniffed a no-hitter.
"I wasn't very good when I was younger," the Red Sox starter told WEEI.com." I was just average. I didn't hit 90 until I was in junior college. I never threw hard. I was a reliever with the junior national team, starting here and there. But I was just average."
But now? Pivetta has had a taste, with those 6 2/3 innings of no-hit ball at Tropicana Field Thursday night allowing for the introduction.
So, heading into Tuesday night's appearances against the Royals what is he feeling? Bitterness that he couldn't finish the job? Nope. Resignation that it was a once-in-a-lifetime moment? Hardly.
The way Pivetta views it, this is just another opportunity to punctuate the feat.
"It's exciting," the pitcher said just moments after throwing his bullpen session Sunday morning. "You get pulled out with 6 2/3 innings and you might be thinking that may never happen again. But you can't be in that mindset. You have to be thinking it's going to happen again. I've been there before and I've tried it before. I can keep trying and keep going, moving forward because I've been in that position. You just keep moving forward and if it happens, it happens. You just have to think it's going to happen available."
While Pivetta is still chasing that first no-hitter, he does not carry the feeling of what it's like to cruise through such an endeavor for 20 outs.
And that's certainly something.
"It's very unique. Euphoric, kind of," he said. "It's just exciting to be living in the moment and focusing in on what is going on in the game. Kind of nothing else matters. If you get hits it doesn't matter. If you get runs it doesn't matter. You're just going out and pitching.
"The scoreboard is right there. I knew from Inning 1 I hadn't given up a hit. It doesn't matter. You just go out and do the same thing and see how long you can hold on to it. That's about it.
"You try and just feel the same, to be honest. You just try and get that level you try to always get to when you're pitching. Staying focused and staying in the moment. Sometimes you have mental days where you're not able to lock in as much or you don't have feel for other pitches. It's just finding when everything clicks and holding on to this."
So, now we find out what that moment in St. Petersburg, Fla. means for Pivetta going forward.
Part of the impetus for taking out Pivetta was to make sure he could function at a high level in the coming starts, having not been taken past 100 pitches against the Rays.
And while he would often throw between 120-130 pitches in junior college, while reaching 120 once in Double-A, this was different. It was the stress of a major league game against one of the big leagues best teams.
"You feel a little more sore here and there," said Pivetta of those extended outings. "But you have five days to recover. It's always nice to have that feeling where you expel that energy in one day and you have four other days to get ready for the next day."
As for actually coming out in what was a tie game, he added, "I'm going to stick to what I say every single time, it's about winning the baseball game in that situation. It's a 0-0 baseball game. If we get two or three runs maybe he lets me keep going. But it's a tied baseball game against a really good club. And we end up losing, so that shows you how much it can move around."
