Oakland A's Dallas Braden Silences Tampa Bay Rays Bats To Throw Perfect Game

Behind 3-1 in the count, Oakland Athletics 26-year old lefty Dallas Braden tossed in a fastball clocked in the high 80s and watched Tampa Bay Rays right fielder Gabe Kapler make solid contact and rope it through the infield grass right to shortstop Cliff Pennington .

Acknowledging Kapler’s speed, Pennington gobbled up the grounder and swiftly fired to first baseman Daric Barton. With the ball in mid-flight and on its way into Barton’s glove, Braden side-stepped in jubilant anticipation, and then, once the throw nestled into Barton’s glove, the starting pitcher pumped his fist triumphantly in the air, paused to take in the reality of the situation, and basked in a euphoric celebration.

He had just thrown the second perfect game in team history.

Having been watching the third game of the NBA playoffs series between the Cleveland Cavaliers and Boston Celtics, I followed the alerts on ABC’s bottomline and switched over to ESPN, where I managed to catch this memorable final out.

Knowing a bit about Braden—how he was drafted 727th overall in the 2003 Amateur Draft, how he played for eight teams in the Oakland Athletics minor league system before finally joining the big club, how is mother died of melanoma when he was in high school, how he entered 3-2 on the season, and how he blasted Alex Rodriguez for breaking an unbreakable rule —I understood the magnitude of this moment.

Rodriguez may have inexplicably trotted across his mound a week ago, but today, on a sunny afternoon in Oakland, the mound was all his. But it was more than just a perfect game to him.

His career statistics entering this game were nothing special: 17-23 record with a 4.62 ERA. His repertoire wasn’t considered all too impressive, either, as his fastball averages out at 87 miles per hour (good for ninth slowest in the majors), while his slider and changeup are perceived as nothing more than average.

The slowness of his pitches wreck havoc, though, and everything clicked for him in this outing—an outing that took everyone by surprise.

The eloquent-speaking Braden, who credited his eight fielders for the accomplishment before himself, was facing one of the best offenses in baseball and the leader of the American League East division. Pitchers have tried to succeed in this modern age with two pitches. The New York Yankees Mariano Rivera does so with one, a cutter. But aside from Rivera, few have put together much of a career without an assortment of pitches.

Braden epitomized unpredictability, baffling the Rays with sliders, changeups, curveballs, and fastballs. It didn’t matter the count. Catcher Landon Powell called the pitches and the nearby-Stockton native threw them. Their chemistry was impeccable. There was nothing, literally nothing the Rays could do.

Previously known solely for calling out Rodriguez after an April 22 start in which he defeated Yankees ace CC Sabathia, Braden will be known for his performance on the mound, and on Mother’s Day no less. After persevering through the minor leagues and waiting for become another rabbit pulled out of General Manager Billy Beane’s hat, everything that he has worked for came together with one magical start.

One perfect outing dedicated to his mother, his grandmother who raised him, the patient Athletics organization, the eight teammates on the field that made it happen, and the many others that mobbed him after a pump of the fist and a gesture to the heavens.