Stop me if you’ve heard this one, but last week in Chicago, Yoshinobu Yamamoto took a no-hitter into the ninth inning. And then…well…as if I needed any more reason to be annoyed by the Savannah Bananas…ex-Savannah Banana Tristan Peters spoiled my fun.
That ball had a family. I had the oddest sense of deja vu. If only I could place my finger on it…along with my simmering, justified resentment towards Jackson Holliday…
I am probably one of the few people on the planet outside the Dodgers organization who happened to be in both Baltimore and the South Side of Chicago for Yamamoto’s attempted dalliances with history. Other random coincidences are that Stephen Nelson was on the call for both games, and I was sitting literally below him at both Oriole Park at Camden Yards and Rate Field.
In all seriousness, if I had a nickel every time I was present for Yoshinobu Yamamoto losing a no-hitter by a home run in the ninth inning, I would have two nickels. It isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it’s happened twice, right? The situation is right up there with “being doomed by a puppet.”
Kidding aside, when I say at some point I became the Forrest Gump of traveling Dodgers fans, I am not kidding. I used to complain about it; now, I just lean into the insanity. While I lack both the mental deficiencies and the physical prowess of Winston Groom’s fictional character, history has a knack for just unfolding around me.
Being who I am and doing what I do, I tend to get it recorded on my phone. The best analogy I have for what it is like to experience these events live compared to through a screen is to ask you to imagine you are forced to wear gloves to interact with the world. And then one day, someone rips off the gloves, and you get to interact directly for the first time.
The downside to this analogy is that events lose their pop over time. Where I was reduced to stunned silence after the Dodgers won the COVID Cup in 2020, I was hooting like a madman when Freddie Freeman met Gibby in 2024. My brain overloaded at the conclusion of Game 7; if I hadn’t been recording, I wouldn’t have realized I was screaming at the end.
Another statistical oddity that unfolded in front of me this past week, which researchers like Sarah Langs ignored, is that Shohei Ohtani led off three straight games at Guaranteed Rate Field/Rate Field with a homer going back to his last visit in 2024 and 2026. Considering this fact, why fans would chant “We want Shohei” when he wasn’t playing in Game 1 of the series is entirely beyond me. There’s tempting fate and then there’s just being dumb.
One might wonder why I don’t have footage of the second home run, and the explanation is simple: I was stuck in The Patio, having an awful, not-succulent pregame meal, and I thought the video on the monitor was a replay from the day before, not live footage of Ohtani homering again. Oops.
There he goes…
This flash update is not just to highlight Ohtani’s homer streak (which ended with catcher’s interference of all things) and Yamamoto’s outings, because oddly enough, the happenings keep happening. Thankfully, I learned to stop trying to embrace my inner Vin Scully relatively early on and let the action speak for itself.
I have always considered myself a traveling correspondent and columnist. You shouldn’t see or hear me (unless the moment is too great, as I am not a robot — see Game 7 2025 World Series Highlights). The game is the story, not me.
If someone could legitimately call me an influencer, I think I would gag and die of embarrassment. To each their own, but it is certainly not mine. However, the events of the past week have put me in a reflective mood.
On this off day, it seems as good an opportunity as any to wind back the clock and share some insights from the road. I do not go out hunting history, because that act is a fool’s errand. I like going to Dodgers baseball games. I like going to see new things. I like catching up with or meeting people I have been bantering online with for years, to finally put a name to a face.
Ian Fleming of James Bond fame famously wrote in Goldfinger: “Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it’s enemy action.“ What would Fleming say if something happened six times?
At the risk of jinxing any future brushes with history, let’s revisit the brushes with history that Dodgers pitching keeps having with me in attendance since I have been traveling and writing (on an amateur basis or not) for True Blue LA.
June 19, 2021 – Walker Buehler’s reaches for the brass ring in the desert
When I first got started, the idea that I could be present for a potential no-hitter seemed as alien as the idea that I would eventually visit every Major League Ballpark to see the Dodgers or be at a World Series game where the Dodgers clinched a championship. On my first visit to Chase Field, Walker Buehler unexpectedly tried to grab for the brass ring and came fairly close.
I remember getting overly excited and acutely aware when Walker Buehler kept the Diamondbacks at bay for seven innings. He faultered against David Peralta, of all people, before eventually getting pulled for Mitch White, who coughed up the shutout. However, the cost of experience is wonder. Getting through seven innings unscathed somehow became my general baseline before I started thinking about words like no-hitter or perfect game.
- Line before the no-hitter was broken up: 7 IP, 2 BB, 10 K
- Final line: W, 7 1/3 IP, 2 H, 2 ER, 2 BB, 11 K
April 13, 2022 – Kershaw abbreviated snow day in Minneapolis
I have spilled plenty of ink on Clayton Kerhsaw’s Snow Day in April 2022. It was cold, it snowed a little, and the Twins were flailing at everything. I remember how I was getting progressively more excited as Kershaw was perfect through five innings, then six, and ultimately seven, as Gavin Lux really saved Kershaw’s bid and bacon.
And then, poor Alex Vesia was summoned into the game. The reaction from the Minnesotans still in attendance was as visceral as anything I had ever seen in person. Seriously, who gets that angry at Alex Vesia? Unlike the majority of fans in attendance, I had and continue to have no problem with Dave Roberts’ decision to pull Kershaw after seven frames, considering the lack of a true spring training combined with the weather conditions.
Alas, it was not to be. Gary Sanchez singled off Vesia, and he was the only baserunner of the day. Personally, a combo no-hitter or combo perfect game is not a thing; it’s one person, one game. This view has evolved over time, and I get that the league views this position differently.
- Final Line: W, 7 IP, 13 K, 21 up, 21 down
July 15, 2022 – Kershaw’s second bite at the apple in Anaheim
If you read Kershaw’s biography, The Last of His Kind: Clayton Kershaw and the Burden of Greatness— a title I grow to hate with each passing year (the book is fine, the title needed an editor), you’d be forgiven if you forgot this outing, considering Kershaw omitted when recounting 2022.
I didn’t and wouldn’t, as for my money, it was the stronger start. The Twins were flailing aggressively, but the Anaheim Angels looked lost as even the mighty Ohtani looked clueless in facing Kershaw. For the record, the loud Angels fan in the background of these videos is my friend from law school, a long-suffering Angels fan.
If one were looking for the last truly dominant start of Kershaw’s career, that balmy night with friends in Anaheim is a strong candidate. I have never claimed to be a beat writer, so I leave the day-to-day happenings to Eric Stephen and company. Accordingly, I hadn’t seen another Kershaw in between that truncated outing in April. From my perspective, it was consecutive; therefore, the silent yay and golf clap after his first two innings was an acknowledgment of a perfect game just for me.
No one was ever supposed to know about it. Then he was perfect for five more innings — again. For those wondering, I get the impulse to root against history. I snicker that if history is not made, you generally are just at a stinker of a game, destined to blend together in the sands of time.
Luis Rengifo doubled in the eighth, and the late-Reyes Moronta coughed up the shutout by a solo homer to Brandon Marsh, which was the only other hit in the game, in the ninth.
- Line before Perfect Game broken up: 7 IP, 6 K, 21 up, 21 down
- Final line: 8 IP, 1 H, 6 K, 25 up, 24 down
August 12, 2022 – Tony Gonsolin’s dalliance with history in Kansas City
One might wonder why I don’t have footage from this moment. Unfortunately, in 2023, my original iPhone was fried, and its backup was lost before I had a chance to fully upload all the videos that I had recorded. Plus, the conditions that night were truly miserable.
Honestly, I was more surprised than anything else at what turned out to be Gonsolin’s best start in a Dodgers uniform. It was horrifically muggy that night in Kansas City, a mugginess that only exceeded the following night. The perfect game bid seemed like an afterthought as Kyle Isbel drew a walk in the bottom of the fifth, and the no-hitter bid ended before it truly had a chance to get interesting with a Vinnie Pasquantino single in the bottom of the seventh. Michael A. Taylor knocked Pasquantino with a double that same frame to end the shutout.
- Line before Perfect Game broken up: 5 1/3 IP, 3 K
- Line before No-Hitter broken up: 6 1/3 IP, 2 BB, 3 K
- Final Line: W, 6 2/3 IP, ER, 3 BB, 3 K
September 6, 2025 – Yamamoto’s Brilliance Wasted
Imagine losing a game after getting 26 no-hit outs. Who would let that happen?
I still flinch whenever I think of this game. Not because of the no-hitter being broken up, but the ultimate conclusion. In part, I also flinch because I was mildly late, as I spent two hours in traffic trying to get pit beef before the game started. I wanted to be seated well in advance of the pregame ceremonies to honor Cal Ripken breaking Lou Gehrig’s record, and sadly, I was not.
The only time my blood pressure rose for this one was after Yamamoto got the 26th (and final) out. Once the ball sailed out, my thoughts turned to the Dodgers’ bullpen, and I wondered if they were capable of getting one final out.
The fans around me were annoying that night. The Baltimore fans, apart from my friend extoling Tanner Scott to remember his roots, would not shut up about the no-hitter starting in the fifth inning. The Dodgers fans near me did not realize there was a potential no-hitter until the seventh inning and then proceeded to not shut up about it.
Spending the game with a friend and meeting friends afterward took a lot of the sting off of this one. I always wondered how I would have fared had I been alone that night.
- Line before No-Hitter Broken Up: 8 2/3 IP, 2 BB, 10 K
- Final Line: ND, 8 2/3 IP, H, ER, 2 BB, 10 K
June 13, 2026 – E6
Woof. That error gets worse every time I see it. Talkin’ Baseball argued that the condition of the field contributed to Mookie Betts’ error. I refrained from saying “Cut Rate Field” while I was in Chicago, but sometimes the shoe fits.
It was the bottom of the third inning when I realized the last time I saw Yamamoto this sharp was, and then I immediately silenced my thoughts before thinking of the word Baltimore. It was just a Saturday in the park, and while I wish I had thought of the Chicago song of the same name, my mind went elsewhere while trying to drown out the Let’s Go White Sox song, the horrible US chant someone made up at the World Cup, and the Brass Bonanza — the goal song for the defunct Hartford Whalers of the NHL.
The Whalers moved to Raleigh and became the Carolina Hurricanes. When they won the Stanley Cup, I had to resist the urge to blast the song on the airplane and succumb to the memes of victory. The song is quite good and quite catchy.
Once again, the local fans would not stop talking about the perfect game starting in the fifth inning, and I was trying to distract myself as I had no one to banter with this time.
Betts owned up to the error after the game:
“Just a routine ground ball that I missed. I’m not making any excuses. I should have made the play.”
No kidding.
I had a whole diatribe lined up for Betts as I was genuinely angry after E6. I had to strain myself to find some positivity. Yamamoto was far more forgiving than most would have been in the situation. Having previously thrown two no-hitters in Japan, I understand that he had a measure of experience from which to draw grace.
Second, it’s just a regular-season game in June. Had Betts’ blunder occurred when Alejandro Kirk hit his ground ball in the bottom of the eleventh in Toronto on November 1… Let’s instead skip that horrible what-if scenario by reliving the time Betts got it right — especially with his Game 7 bobblehead night coming up on Friday.
Betts has unleashed a couple of web gems since, which doesn’t make up for Saturday’s goof. Nothing will, but I have to live with that fact. His bat has crept above the Uecker line, forestalling any need to vent on that front — for now. In any event, the Dodgers managed not to blow another lead in a no-hitter, which is something positive, I suppose.
- Line before Perfect Game broken up: 7 2/3 IP, 7 K
- Line before No-Hitter broken up: 8 IP, H, ER, 7 K
- Final line: W, 8 1/3 IP, H, ER, 7 K
What’s next? Who knows? Realistically, we will have a proper field report next week. As for travel, I go back on the shelf until after the All-Star Break, when I visit MLB stadiums 29 and 30: New Yankee Stadium and Citizens Bank Park, respectively.
