J.T. Ginn Had a No-Hitter Through 8. Then the Angels Walked Off in Two Pitches.
The A's righthander threw 105 pitches with 10 strikeouts and led 1-0 into the ninth. Two pitches later he was the losing pitcher in a 2-1 walk-off.
The worst feeling in baseball is probably not striking out with the bases loaded. It's probably also not blowing a save. The worst feeling is being one out away from a no-hitter, leading 1-0, and then walking off the mound as the losing pitcher.
J.T. Ginn knows that feeling now.
Eight perfect innings of work, then two pitches
The A's righthander was electric Monday night against the Angels. Through eight innings: no hits, 10 strikeouts, 105 pitches, 1-0 lead. He was perfect through 4⅓ before a baserunner reached. He had the kind of stuff you go to a ballpark hoping to see — the fastball was alive, the slider was darting, and the Angels' bats were one full second behind everything.
Then he came out for the ninth.
First batter: Adam Frazier. Count went to 0-2. Ginn was one strike from being one out away. He left the next pitch up. Frazier lined a clean single into right field, and the no-hit bid was over.
One batter later: Zach Neto. He hit a 413-foot two-run homer to dead center. Walk-off, 2-1 Angels.
Two pitches. One historic outing, gone.
The unfortunate fraternity Ginn just joined
Since 1974, Ginn is now the sixth major league pitcher to allow no hits through eight innings and lose the game. That is a 50-plus year sample. The fraternity has six members. Ginn is the newest.
The stat is so improbable it almost feels engineered. It requires a starter to be perfect for eight, hold a one-run lead, then fall apart in two batters with the bullpen warm. Most managers pull a starter at 100+ pitches in a one-run game. The fact that Ginn was still in there in the ninth tells you something about how dominant his stuff looked. A's manager Mark Kotsay almost certainly second-guesses that decision today, even if it was the right call in the moment.
Kotsay's quote captured everything
"He pitched probably the best game he's pitched in his big league career, and to have an opportunity to get a no-hitter, and two hits later you walk off with a loss, it's tough."
That's a manager trying to be supportive of his pitcher in the lowest moment of that pitcher's career. The line between dominant outing and historic gut-punch in baseball is shockingly thin, and Monday night was the kind of evidence that wins you the argument.
What this means for the Angels
For Los Angeles, it ended a six-game losing streak. Zach Neto hit his first career walk-off home run, which is the kind of moment a young player remembers forever. And the Angels hadn't been no-hit since 1999 — they were one out away from being the answer to a trivia question they didn't want to be the answer to.
The team had been searching for a spark all month. They got a 413-foot one.
What this means for the A's
Ginn drops to 2-2 on the season, but the box score lies. His ERA, his K-rate, his swing-and-miss numbers all jumped. The Athletics, mid-rebuild and on the move to Sacramento, found a piece. Ginn now has a marker — an outing he should have won, a moment he should have owned — and the pitchers who recover well from those starts usually become the pitchers who write better stories the next time around.
The bottom line
Monday night was a perfect demonstration of why baseball stays interesting. A pitcher does the hardest thing in his sport for eight straight innings and ends up the loser. A team that hadn't won in six gets a walk-off home run from a guy on his first career walk-off swing. Two pitches in May, two careers nudged in opposite directions. That's the game.