CLEVELAND -- Eight no-hit innings were enough for Corbin Burnes, so Josh Hader finished the job.
With Burnes’ pitch count elevated by his strikeout count, the National League Cy Young Award candidate was not sent out for the ninth on Saturday at Progressive Field. But his dominant effort owned the night, and Hader, one of the game’s great closers, put the final touches on the Brewers’ first no-hitter since 1987 in a 3-0 victory over Cleveland.
It’s the ninth no-hitter of the season, topping 1884 for the most in a year in MLB history (pending the inclusion of Negro Leagues stats). And it pushed the Brewers’ record to a franchise-best 33 games over .500 while whittling their magic number to clinch the NL Central down to eight.
Cleveland became the first team to suffer three no-hitters in a season, and remarkably, each of those games was started by Zach Plesac. Only one pitcher previously, Jim Perry, had been on the losing team's end of three no-hitters throughout the course of his career (once in 1970, twice in '73). This season, the White Sox Carlos Rodón pitched a no-no in an 8-0 win vs. the Indians on April 14, and 23 days later, Reds starter Wade Miley etched his name into the record book during a 3-0 victory.
Juan Nieves tossed the Brewers’ first no-no way back on April 15, 1987. There have been a handful of close calls in the years since, but it took a man born seven years after Nieves’ gem to put them in position for another.
With a Major League-best 2.25 ERA, 1.49 FIP, 35.4% strikeout rate (tied with the Dodgers’ Max Scherzer) and 7.1 FanGraphs-calculated pitching WAR and an NL-best 4.9% walk rate, Burnes’ NL Cy Young Award case is growing clearer by the outing. And an outing like this will only place more emphasis and attention on his 2021 brilliance.
All the run support Burnes needed arrived immediately. Christian Yelich ripped an RBI double in the first, advanced to third on an error and scored on a sacrifice fly to make it 2-0. The Brewers added a run in the second on a Rowdy Tellez RBI double.
From there, all one had to do was settle in and watch Burnes dictate terms to a Cleveland lineup that could muster little more than a handful of three-ball counts and a couple of fly balls against him. Burnes didn’t even allow a batted ball with an exit velocity greater than 87 mph until Cleveland catcher Austin Hedges lifted a fly ball to the warning track in the sixth.
Mostly, Burnes pitched himself into three-strike counts. He came into this start -- his 25th of the season -- just four strikeouts shy of 200 for the season. He got there on just the fifth batter he faced. And he only needed to face 13 batters to reach his seventh double-digit strikeout effort of the season. With his deep and complex arsenal of breaking pitches -- including the top-rated cutter in the game and one of the best curveballs -- Burnes was in total control from beginning to end. The only concern was a pitch count ratcheted up by his 14 strikeouts.
It's the control that accompanies the K’s that takes Burnes to another level, and he generally displayed that again. Alas, the leadoff walk he issued to Myles Straw in the seventh took the perfect sheen off his outing. But Burnes calmly retired Cleveland’s Nos. 2, 3 and 4 hitters to shake off any threat of the Brewers’ lead being challenged. His 1-2-3 eighth was punctuated by a beautiful diving catch from center fielder Lorenzo Cain of an Owen Miller liner.
In the ninth, Hader struck out Oscar Mercado, induced a popup from Hedges that Jace Peterson chased down in foul territory with a great grab, then struck out Straw to end it. It was a showcase of the elite starting pitching and relief work that has carried the Crew to quite possibly the best regular season in franchise history.
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