Had Baltimore Orioles starter John Means not thrown a wild pitch and allowed one lone baserunner due to a dropped third strike, he would have accomplished the rarest pitching achievement of Wednesday night. It would have been just the 24th perfect game in baseball history. Unfortunately, he did allow that baserunner under those unfortunate circumstances, turning the perfect game opportunity into "just" a no-hitter.
Believe it or not, because it was a no-hitter, it actually wasn't the rarest feat from the pitcher's mound in Wednesday's MLB slate. That honor belongs to Washington Nationals reliever Kyle Finnegan, who recorded a stat line that has been accomplished just 102 times in league history, more than three times fewer than the amount of no-hitters. He joined fellow Nationals Max Scherzer and Stephen Strasburg, in addition to all-time greats Sandy Koufax, Bob Gibson, Nolan Ryan and Pedro Martinez, in putting together the most efficient, masterful display possible. Even Greg Maddux — the namesake for an uber efficient complete game shutout that takes fewer than 100 pitches to throw, called a "Maddux" — never achieved what Finnegan was able to do on Wednesday night.
The immaculate inning. Three batters. And for each batter, three pitches: a strike, a strike two, and a strike three. It's striking out the side with style.
A Detroit native, Finnegan made his big league debut with the Nationals in 2020, turning in 24.2 innings and recording a 2.92 ERA in an impressive first season at age 28. It was a long road to the show, one that started in 2013 at age 21 and continued steadily as he rose through the ranks of the minors. Washington signed him as a free agent just a month after he was granted free agency in the fall of 2019, and the move has paid off so far. He has a 3.13 ERA, a 10.6 strikeout per nine ratio, and no losses so far in his young career.
There must be something about the Atlanta Braves that boosts Finnegan's confidence on the mound. Perhaps it's the fact that they hit him pretty hard in the Nationals' first game of the year, tagging him for two hits, a walk and an earned run in just two-thirds of an inning on April 6. The next day, Finnegan faced Atlanta again, seeking vengeance, and got just that by striking out the side... in 12 pitches. That's pretty darn close to an immaculate inning, so close that the next time he faced the Braves, he shaved three of those pitches off the total and made history.
"It still doesn’t feel real now that it’s happened," Finnegan said (via Jessica Camerato of MLB.com). "I’m grateful for every day that I have here, and to be able to do something like that is something I’ll remember for the rest of my career.
"...I'm amazed that I was able to throw nine strikes in a row in general. I think tonight was my best stuff that I've had all year."
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