PITTSBURGH (AP) — In what’s quickly become a lost season for the Cincinnati Reds, this really was the ultimate misery.
Prized rookie Hunter Greene and reliever Art Warren combined to allow zero hits in a complete game, but it didn’t count as a no-hitter — or even a win.
Instead, the Pittsburgh Pirates eked out a run in the bottom of the eighth inning on three walks and a groundout for a 1-0 victory Sunday.
“It would have been great to have a different result, but it is what it is,” Greene said.
Ke’Bryan Hayes’ RBI grounder helped the Pirates become the sixth team in big league history since 1901 to win despite not getting any hits. It last happened in 2008 when Jered Weaver and Jose Arredondo of the Angels lost while holding the Dodgers hitless.
By Major League Baseball record-keeping rules, Cincinnati’s accomplishment isn’t an official no-hitter because its pitchers didn’t go at least nine innings.
“Sometimes you win games in weird ways and today we won one in a weird way. And if it’s a part of history, that’s fine because it’s still a win,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said.
And in a year in which most everything has gone wrong for the Reds, this surely had to be the topper as they fell to 9-26, the worst record in the majors.
Greene (1-6) was pulled after one-out walks in the eighth to Rodolfo Castro and Michael Perez. The 22-year-old righty threw 118 pitches, the most by any pitcher in the majors this year.
“He had no-hit stuff and it translated,” Shelton said.
Greene fired seven heaters at 100 mph or faster, and mixed in sharp sliders and effective changeups. He struck out nine and walked five.
He was totally aware of the possible no-hitter, too.
“To be honest, like in the third or fourth. But that’s the last thing I wanted to think about (because) it is really hard to just stay locked in and not think about those things,” Greene said.
“I had the scoreboard right in my face and I was trying not to make eye contact with it,” he said. “Everybody was giving me my space and knew that I was locked in.”
Toward the end, he admitted, he was out of gas.
“But then again, there’s the mental part of, you know, ‘I’m fine. I’m not tired,’” he said.