PHOENIX – The San Diego Padres had their no-hit bid broken up in the eighth inning on Tuesday night when Arizona's David Peralta had a bloop single fall into shallow left field.
Left-hander Blake Snell pitched the first seven innings and was dominant, but needed 107 pitches to get through the Diamondbacks lineup. Padres manager Jayce Tingler decided to put right-hander Pierce Johnson into the game to start the eighth.
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Johnson retired Josh Rojas for the first out before Peralta's opposite-field floater fell in front of Jurickson Profar for a clean single.
Snell — the 2018 AL Cy Young Award winner — was trying to throw the ninth no-hitter in the big leagues this season, which would have broken a record set in 1884, the first season overhand pitching was permitted. The left-hander struck out 10 and walked two.
Snell cruised through the early innings, blowing past an overmatched D-backs lineup with 97 mph fastballs and pinpoint breaking balls. He struck out seven of eight batters in a particularly dominant stretch that lasted from the second to the fourth innings.
Snell threw a season-high 122 pitches in his previous outing six days ago against the Los Angeles Dodgers.
The Padres led 3-0.
Arizona rookie Tyler Gilbert threw the majors' most recent no-hitter on Aug. 14. That no-hitter was also at Chase Field against the Padres.
The Chicago Cubs threw a combined effort June 24. The other no-hitters this year were thrown by San Diego’s Joe Musgrove (April 9), Carlos Rodón of the Chicago White Sox (April 14), Baltimore’s John Means (May 5), Cincinnati’s Wade Miley (May 7), Detroit’s Spencer Turnbull (May 18) and the New York Yankees’ Corey Kluber (May 19).
Musgrove's no-hitter was the first in Padres franchise history, which stretches back to 1969.
There also have been a pair of seven-inning no-hitters this season, which don’t officially count in the Major League Baseball record book.
Arizona’s Madison Bumgarner did it in the second game of a doubleheader at Atlanta on April 25, and five Tampa Bay pitchers combined to accomplish the feat to close out a doubleheader against Cleveland on July 7.
Most of those gems were thrown before MLB cracked down on the use of sticky foreign substances by pitchers in late June.
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