Today, one of the greatest feats in all of sports occurred, as the Oakland Athletics defeated the Tampa Bay Devil Rays 4-0. No, winning four to zero was not the feat. The amazing feat was a perfect game, thrown by Oakland Athletics' pitcher, Dallas Braden.
For those of you who don't know, a perfect game is when zero batters from the opposing team reach base in an entire game. In other words, Braden faced 27 batters and retired 27 batters. This is extremely uncommon and it is a huge deal when a pitcher does this. Just how uncommon is it? Well, today was only the 19th time in the history of the MLB for a pitcher to throw a perfect game.
Even though I didn't watch the game, except for the last out, I know some of the things that Braden must have done really well on his way to this amazing feat. He must have had great control, a bit of luck, and his "stuff" must have been on. It is especially impressive that he accomplished this feat against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, one of the hottest teams in baseball right now, and a team that is full of great hitters.
As a lot of baseball players know, when a pitcher is still throwing a perfect game or a no-hitter through the 6th or 7th inning you don't bring up what is occurring because it is bad luck. So I'm pretty sure it was very quiet around Braden the last few innings to make sure they didn't screw it up for him.
When the last batter for the Rays got up, excitement was filling the stadium. Braden brought the count to three balls and one strike. Walk the batter and the perfect game is over. But, lucky for him, on the next pitch the batter grounded out to the shortstop, who I am positive was shaking on his boots, hoping not to make a mistake and ruin the perfect game. But, he didn't screw up and Braden threw the 19th perfect game in MLB history. Congrats!
"Above: Oakland Athletics' pitcher, Dallas Braden, http://latimes.com"
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