It's the first no-hitter tossed in the bigs this year, the last one being thrown by Jordan Zimmerman of the Nationals on the last day of the season last year,. This was the 288th no-hitter thrown in Major League History. With the perofmrnace, it backed a 5-0 win by the Giants over the New York Mets in Queens. Heston finished with allowing three baserunners in total, all of who reached base after getting hit by a pitch. Heston finished by striking out 11, six of which went down looking. He allowed just two balls into the outfield, flyouts by Wilmer Flores in the second inning and Michael Cuddyer in the seventh. The last pitch was a 91 mph sinker that froze Tejada (ESPN). Heston ended his no-no by throwing called third strikes past pinch-hitter Danny Muno, Curtis Granderson and Ruben Tejada, capping off the night. The last hard hit ball the Mets had in the game came when Brandon Crawford made a backhand stop deep at shortstop and threw to first to retire Eric Campbell for the final out of the eighth.
Heston did have an outstanding performance on the hill, I'm not taking anything away from him by any stretch of the imagination. What really makes me wonder is just how easy of a no hitter was that anyway? The New York Mets, who are still a first place team mind you, made that look kind of easy. Heston did an outstanding job of making the Mets look foolish. Heston does deserve credit, but he had help from the Mets bats, or I should say lack there of. The Mets showed no life whatsoever in this baseball game, at least from an offensive perspective. New York's bats have been struggling as of late and its getting tough to watch. Nobody hit anything hard for the Mets last night. Yes they did make contact, but you could tell that there was no force behind any of the swings the Mets took last night. It was signs of a team that is in a bit of a struggle right now. Darrell Ceciliani was the last Mets player to get a hit, an RBI single in the top of the 9th Sunday against the Diamondbacks in Arizona.
Here's part of what is so mind boggling with where the Mets are in the division standings right now. Despite leading the NL East, the Mets are 25th among the 30 teams in runs, a dearth partly due to injuries to David Wright, Daniel Murphy and Travis d'Arnaud. How are they still even a first place team with a weak offense like that? It also helps that the Washington Nationals have struggled as of late as well and the rest of the NL East is pathetic. Still its a small miracle that the Mets are not only atop the division but have a winning record right now. It's really amazing that the team can still do what its doing right now. Again I'll give credit where its due, Chris Heston did what was expected of him to do. He made the pitches he needed to make, finding a way to get hitters out when he had to. New York just didn't have an answer for him tonight.
Heston has become the 22nd rookie since 1901 to throw a no-hitter, and the first one to do it since Clay Buchholz tossed one for the Red Sox in 2007 against Baltimore. The Giants have pitched 17 no-hitters, including nine since the team moved from New York to San Francisco. This marks the 4th straight season that a Giants pitcher has thrown a no-hitter (Matt Cain tossed the perfect game in 2012 vs. Houston, Tim Lincecum threw one in July 2013 vs San Diego and then again against San Diego in June of 2014). This was the seventh no-hitter against the Mets, but the first since Houston's Darryl Kile in 1993.
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