Friday, August 17, 2018

Perfect Game for Bridges

The near-impossible occurred today: Matt Bridges pitched a perfect game, securing a place for himself in baseball history.  Bridges joined Scott Beachhead as the only pitchers in league history to throw perfect games.  Beachhead's perfect game came exactly 20 years and 2 months before Bridges'.
Starting for the Denver Rabbits, Bridges defeated the Hawaii Hounddogs 2-0 in a no-run, no-hit, no-man-reach-first game -- the rarest of the rare.
"I knew what was going on," he acknowledged to BNN after the game. "I was hoping the fans would kind of shush a little bit. They were making me nervous."
When his perfect day on the mound ended, he pumped his fist twice at the ground as he was swarmed by his teammates. He made his way off the field to a standing ovation from the crowd and gave fans a final wave before disappearing into the clubhouse.
"You don't talk to the guy about it, of course, but I could tell he was confident," Rabbits manager Bewis Skywalker said. "He wanted it."
The right-hander walked nobody and struck out 6 in the game, for which he had a special audience in the stands -- his parents. Bridges said his dad appeared puzzled in the clubhouse after the game and asked what all the excitement was about.
"He said he got there late, and I was like, 'Oh my god, you missed my perfect game!'" Bridges recounted. "Of course, turns out he was kidding. They had seen the whole thing."
Bridges accomplished his feat while only throwing 81 pitches, 59 for strikes.  In the third inning he retired the side on just 3 pitches.  In the 9th inning Hawaii challenged rookie outfield Michael Stewart.  Arnold Weber hit a blooper to shallow right and Stewart had to race in to make the catch.  The next batter, Ron Benefield, hit one to the warning track.  Stewart had enough time to plant himself under it "those last 3 seconds seemed to last forever.  I kept telling myself I better not drop this one." said Stewart.  The final batter, pinch hitter Quan Campbell, took two strikes and then swung and missed to end the game.
Bridges has made 25 starts this season, posting 11 wins and 8 losses. Opposing clubs are batting .254 against him and he has 125 strikeouts in 152.1 innings with a 4.73 ERA.

1 Comments:

At 9:35 AM EDT, Anonymous Scott Beachhead said...

Once again the fattest of fat, filthy yodas ruins perfection with his so called reporting.

 

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