CC Sabathia Denied by the Baseball Gods—Again

CC Sabathia has had a brilliant career. He is a perennial all-star, World Series champion and a former Cy Young award winner. Despite these facts, there is one achievement that has eluded him: a no-hitter.

He has stared down the barrel of a no-hitter on multiple occasions but it has never come to pass. On Tuesday night, Sabathia wasn’t facing a regular no-hitter. He was flirting with a perfect game. This isn’t a minor accomplishment; it has only been done 18 times in the modern era of Major League Baseball.

As Sabathia’s gem was going on, everyone could see it coming. They didn’t see perfection, they instead saw lightning. As the fourth inning started it was apparent that the baseball gods didn’t want this to happen. Sabathia responded to the Gods by striking out seven Mariners in a row. The seventh strikeout (against Mike Carp) brought the downpour.

The tarp came out and the players left the field for 30 minutes. When they came back there was one out in the top of the sixth inning. Sabathia then got the next two hitters, Greg Holman and Chone Figgins, on a pop up and a ground out.

When the top of the seventh came around, it was clear that CC had lost some of the magic. He struck out Ichiro Suzuki on a hanging slider. He then lost out on perfection when Brendan Ryan hit a line drive to left field.

Sabathia ended up winning the game (his 15th win) after another 14-minute delay, but missed out on the one thing that continues to elude him. This isn’t the first time that the baseball gods or an official scorer have taken it away from the big lefty.

In 2008, while with the Brewers, Sabathia threw a 7-0 shutout against the Pittsburgh Pirates. It was a one-hitter. The one hit was an Andy LaRoche infield single. On the play Sabathia could have been charged with an error, as he attempted to bare hand the ball and throw LaRoche out at first. The official scorer (Bob Webb) called it a base hit and the no-hitter was lost.

After 2008, Sabathia became a Yankee and has been fantastic. He once again came close to the elusive accomplishment in the beginning of the 2010 season.  On April 10, 2010 Sabathia had a no-hitter intact after 7.2 innings while playing the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field. Kelly Shoppach broke up the gem with a single.

Manager Joe Girardi later revealed that he would have taken Sabathia out of the game even if CC hadn’t surrendered a hit. He explained that Sabathia’s pitch count was too high (111) for that early in the season. He wanted to protect Sabathia from injury.

These three instances are the closest that Sabathia has gotten to a no-hitter or perfect game. There is no guarantee that he would have completed the perfect game, even if the rain hadn’t come. But the chances would have been a lot better.

The baseball gods dealt Sabathia a raw hand on Tuesday but he had to go along with what he was dealt. No-hitters can largely be attributed to luck. So the question is can the sun finally shine on CC Sabathia and give him that career defining moment?

Notes:

The Yankees look to sweep the Seattle Mariners tomorrow at 1:05 PM ET. The Mariners extended their streak to 17 consecutive losses.