Happy 28th birthday to Chris Heston, who threw a San Francisco Giants no-hitter against the New York Mets last season in just his 13th major league start.

Heston, a 27-year-old rookie right-hander, struck out 11 batters and did not allow a walk on June 9, 2015, but he hit three batters for the 5-0 win — the first no-hitter thrown at Citi Field since Johan Santana’s 2012 no-no.

Heston was perfect through three innings as his Giants built a 3-run lead off Noah Syndergaard by the middle of the third. Heston retired Curtis Granderson to make it 10 straight before plunking Ruben Tejada in the arm with a 75 mph curve ball and then grazing Lucas Duda’s pant leg with an 89-mph fastball. Heston got out of the jam by inducing a 5-4-3 double-play out of Michael Cuddyer.

Matt Duffy extended the Giants’ lead with a solo homer to left off Syndergaard in the sixth, and Joe Panik tagged relieved Dillon Gee for another dinger in the seventh to make it 5-0.

Meanwhile, Heston kept retiring Mets batters only to return to the Giants dugout to be ignored (per superstitious baseball protocol). His only other blemish came in the ninth when he plunked Mets catcher Anthony Recker in the upper arm with an 89-mph fastball. He then caught pinch-hitter Danny Muno
Granderson and Tejada looking to complete the no-no with his ninth, 10th and 11th K’s.

Category: No-no birthdays2 Comments
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Author: Dirk Lammers

Dirk Lammers is a veteran journalist who began rooting for the New York Mets in the early-1970s when the team’s no no-hitter count was barely 2,000 games old. Lammers has since turned his research into Baseball’s No-Hit Wonders: More Than a Century of Pitching’s Greatest Feats (Unbridled Books) and NoNoHitters.com, where he maintains the Internet's largest archive of no-hitter information.

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