Oakland Athletics’ Sean Manaea no-hits Red Sox

The Oakland Athletics’ Sean Manaea no-hit the Boston Red Sox on Saturday night, the 297th no-hitter in MLB history.

Manaea struck out 10 and walked two en route to a 3-0 no-hit victory at Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum. Another Red Sox base runner reached base in the fifth inning on an error by A’s shortstop Marcus Semein, who failed to make an over-the-shoulder snag of a fly ball that could have easily been called a hit. Manaea had assumed it was ruled a hit, so he didn’t realize his no-hitter was still intact until the eighth inning.

Manaea was the beneficiary of another generous call in the sixth inning on what appeared to be an infield single by Andrew Benintendi, whose roundabout head-first slide into first avoided a tag by first baseman Matt Olson. The umpires huddled up and ruled that Benintendi left the baseline and they called him out.

The last no-hitter thrown by an A’s pitcher was Dallas Braden’s Mother’s Day perfect game on Sunday, May 9, 2010, at the Coliseum, a 4-0 win over the Tampa Bay Rays. (It was cool to see Braden, now an A’s sideline commentator, conduct the on-field post-game interview with Manaea.) Manaea’s no-no marked the 10th thrown at Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum, putting in behind only Fenway Park (14) and Dodger Stadium (12) for no-nos at current ballparks.

The last no-hitter thrown against the Red Sox was by the Seattle Mariners’ Chris Bosio, way back on Thursday, April 22, 1993, at the Kingdome, a 7-0 win by the Mariners. The Red Sox’s streak of avoiding a no-hitter was set to turn 25 tomorrow.

Just over a year ago, Manaea was pulled from a no-hitter in progress after throwing five innings of no-hit ball while nursing a 5-0 lead on Saturday, April 15, 2017, only to get into a heap of trouble in the sixth inning.

Manaea loaded the bases by walking George Springer, Alex Bregman and José Altuve, and then Springer scored as Carlos Correa reached base on an error by shortstop Adam Rosales and Bregman scored on an error by center fielder Jeff Decker. Manager Bob Melvin gave the ball to Ryan Dull, who limited the damage to 5-2 and kept the no-no going. Liam Hendricks took over for the seventh and immediately gave up a leadoff single to the Astros’ Nori Aoki as the A’s eventually lost 10-6.

On Saturday night, Manaea became just the second no-no thrower to wear No. 55 during his accomplishment, matching the San Francisco Giants’ Tim Lincecum, who wore No. 55 while no-hitting the Padres twice.