Of course the biggest thing to me was the no-hitter by New York Mets pitcher Johan Santana against the St. Louis Cardinals. As you may have seen in a previous post, I had given the Mets the Curse of Nolan Ryan for trading away the Hall of Fame pitcher in the 70's only to see him pitch a record seven no-hitters in his career. Meanwhile, the Mets went over 8,000 games without accomplishing the feat, closing in on a Philadelphia Phillies' record for the longest streak without one. However, that run abruptly came to an end on June 1st as Santana went the distance against the St. Louis Cardinals in an 8-0 victory.
Santana was helped along the way, not only by his teammates, but by one poor call by an umpire midway through the game. Former Met, Carlos Beltran hit a line drive down the left field line ruled foul. Upon reviewing replays, the ball did clip part of the foul line and therefore should have been ruled fair, likely resulting in an extra-base hit.
It wasn't the worst call in sports by any means, but it was the wrong call. Some might say the Mets didn't deserve the no-hitter because of it, but I don't think those people appropriate weigh all the individuals calls that go into the course of one baseball game, or a sporting event in general. It's easy to focus on the ones that make the difference such as the Carlos Beltran foul ball, or Jim Joyce robbing a perfect game and no-hitter from Armando Galarraga by ruling a player safe at first that was clearly out.
However, before you can truly deem that these bad calls alone were the deciding factors, you would need to really analyze every single play/pitch for the game. My memory certainly isn't 100% for Galarraga's game, but I seem to recall him seeing quite a few pitches called in his favor that might not be considered strikes every other day of the week. On the flip side, how often to pitcher's throwing a no-hitter end up on the wrong side of a call when they give up a walk, or a called strike goes unnoticed only to see the hitter get another chance?
I don't believe many umpires (Angel Hernandez being an exception) having an agenda against a team to truly make calls constantly one way, and in the grand scheme of things it usually balances out. That said, I'm a Mets fan, so perhaps I'm biased on Santana accomplishing the feat and breaking the Mets run. However, if you don't believe my theory that all evens out, look no further than last night's Mets game when they visited the Tampa Bay Rays.
In the first inning with two outs, the Rays B.J. Upton hit a ground ball to third baseman David Wright. Wright tried to barehand the ball, dropped it, and Upton reached safely. The play was deemed an infield hit although from watching it, the majority would clearly argue it was an error. Mets pitcher R.A. Dickey recorded the final out of the inning, and the whole thing seemed inconsequential. Well, that was until eight innings later when Dickey was still on the mound behind a Mets 9-0 lead. Dickey didn't give up another hit, and in fact didn't walk a batter all night. Had the play been ruled an error, the Mets would have recorded a no-hitter in Tampa Bay last night. In the end, Dickey was credited with a one-hitter in a 9-1 victory. The lone run coming from a David Wright throwing error in the ninth and two passed balls by Mike Nickeas, and being unearned.
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