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Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Garza Throws No-Hitter Vs. Tigers; Rays Win 5-0

By: Tyler Ward

There was yet another no-hitter this year in baseball - Tampa Bay's Matt Garza threw the first no-no in Rays history on Monday night against the Detroit Tigers. Two of the no-hitters have been perfect games (Oakland's Dallas Braden and Philadelphia's Roy Halladay). This marks the third time in MLB history that a team has been a part of three no-hitters in the game season. The Rays allowed Arizona's Edwin Jackson and Oakland's Dallas Braden to throw no-hitters earlier this season.

Garza (11-5) faced the minimum 27 batters, surrendering only a second-inning walk to Brennan Boesch. The next batter, Ryan Raburn, grounded into a double play to end the inning. Garza relied on his fastball to get outs, as he got 23 out of the 27 outs with his complementing fastball.

His counterpart, Max Scherzer (7-8), had a no-hitter intact until Tampa Bay's Matt Joyce hit a grand slam in the sixth inning. The four runs that Joyce drove in were nearly all the runs compiled in the game. Carl Crawford homered in the eighth inning to put the Rays up 5-0. Already securing the win, it was up to Garza to end the near-perfect night.

To end the game, Garza got pinch-hitter Ramon Santiago to pop up to right field, with Ben Zobrist making the catch, successfully ending the game. The crowd of 17,009 cheered Garza on while witnessing history in the making. Detroit's lineup was already depleted with major contributors Brandon Inge, Magglio Ordonez, and Carlos Guillen being sidelined for the game.

Garza has had an up-and-down season thus far, after allowing seven runs on ten hits in a little over six innings against the lowly Baltimore Orioles.

The Tigers were no-hit for the first time since June 2, 1990 when Mariners pitcher Randy Johnson dominated a poor Tigers team.

Garza's no-hitter leaves the New York Mets and San Diego Padres as the only teams to not have a no-hitter in their team's history.

Detroit's Scherzer pitched great in Monday's loss, but his outing was overshadowed by Garza. He only surrendered two hits in 5 2/3 innings, but also gave up three earned runs. The loss put Scherzer below .500 and his ERA stands at 4.45.

Entering Tuesday, the Rays are 60-38, three games behind the Yankees for the division lead. The Tigers slipped down to 51-47, and are also three games behind in the AL Central.