Mizzou Baseball in the Majors

Max Scherzer experiences a no-hitter . . . from the wrong side

■ Rays 5, Tigers 0: Matt Garza deals Detroit a no-hitter (DetroitNews.com)

A baseball season that, by the week, seems to be running backward on the Tigers, introduced some new freakishness Monday at Tropicana Field.

Just when it looked as if Max Scherzer was about to take a no-hitter into the seventh inning, it was his gun-slinging counterpart, Matt Garza, who instead stole the showdown.

Behind a belly-high fastball that put the Tigers in knots, Garza pitched the first no-hitter in Tampa Bay history, and the first no-hitter against the Tigers in 20 years, in mowing down Detroit, 5-0.
. . .
"That's why it's a weird game," said Tigers catcher Gerald Laird, who was one of the few Tigers to hit anything hard against Garza, when he socked a sixth-inning fly to deep center. "One hit, and we're down, four-nothing."

That one hit was a grand slam by Joyce, on a 3-2 fastball, that soared inside the right-field foul pole for Joyce's third homer of the year, and his second slam. It came after Scherzer had walked two batters, sandwiched around a catcher's interference call on Laird, which loaded the bases with one out for Carlos Pena, another of the one-time Tigers who now plays for Tampa Bay.

Scherzer struck out Pena on a 3-2 fastball. He didn't get the same fastball, on the same count, past Joyce, who fouled a 3-1 fastball into the right-field seats before blasting Scherzer's next heater into the blue chairs in deep right.

And friends of Max will enjoy the photo of his reaction to giving up the grand slam