OAKLAND, Calif. — On Tuesday night, the New York Yankees scored one run against the Oakland A’s and lost 2-1. It was a new low point for New York’s offense and a low point for the team overall. They have been struggling in the absence of their best player Aaron Judge who’s been on the injured list with a torn ligament in his big toe since June 7.
On Wednesday night, they got perfection from an unlikely starter: beleaguered right-hander Domingo Germán. During his last two starts prior to Wednesday night, Germán had combined to throw only five and one-third innings and gave up 17 runs (15 earned). Nothing was working for him. His pitches were flat, and the opposition was feasting on his offerings.
That wasn’t the case on Wednesday. Domingo Germán tossed the fourth perfect game in Yankees’ history.
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On the latest episode of Locked On Yankees, host Stacey Gotsulias discussed the perfect game with producer Steve Granado and to say they were shocked by the events is an understatement.
“Domingo was pitching terribly, some of the worst baseball we’ve seen in a long time. Especially this season, it was his worst baseball he’s pitched.” Granado said, “It (last night) was the direct polar opposite of his last two starts.”
In his last start against Seattle on June 22, when he only lasted three and one-third innings and gave up 10 runs (eight earned), he threw 93 pitches. On Wednesday night, Germán threw 99 pitches in nine perfect innings.
So what was working for Germán in his perfect game? His curveball. He threw it 51 times and got 12 whiffs on 32 swings. He generated 17 swings and misses overall. In fact, his last out of the game, a groundball to Josh Donaldson at third, came off an 82.4 MPH curveball to Estuery Ruiz that put German into the baseball record books.
Germán had nine strikeouts. Eight out of the nine were swinging, eight of the nine were on the curveball, and Ryan Noda struck out three times, and all three were swinging on the curveball. He got Jonah Bride looking on the curve in the second inning and swinging on the sinker in the fourth inning.
After the game, Yankees manager Aaron Boone said via MLB.com, “When he gets rolling like that, he’s just so fun to watch at his craft,” Boone added. “He’s so good at commanding all of his pitches. His curveball was great tonight. But because his changeup and his fastball were good, too, it made that curveball even more special.”
A’s second baseman Tony Kemp, who hit a fly ball in the fourth inning that would have been a home run in Yankee Stadium, said about Germán, “He threw that curveball in any count that he wanted to. It was spinning differently and moving differently. He put his fastball where he wanted to. Changeup as well. He just kind of mixed them. Got a couple of good swings off him, but no results.”
Germán had a long layover in the top of the fifth when the Yankees’ offense exploded for six runs, so he went to the bullpen mound, which isn’t a far stroll from the dugout in the Oakland Coliseum, to make some warm-up pitches. In the bottom of the fifth, Seth Brown hit a hard ground that was snagged by Anthony Rizzo, who tossed it to Germán for the out, and Germán cruised after that.
Here are some fun facts about Germán’s perfect game:
The last time the A’s had a no-hitter thrown against them was on June 11, 1990. It happened to be Nolan Ryan’s sixth at the time; he’d go on to throw one more after that. And the last time the A’s had a perfect game thrown against them was at the start of the last century in 1904. Cy Young had the honors that time.
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