It might scarcely be believable to those who witnessed his no-hitter against the Braves on Saturday night, but Ubaldo Jimenez is only human. He puts his socks on one leg at a time, just like anyone else.
And he wears them high, always has, since he watched Braves games in his native Dominican Republic as a kid and decided he wanted to look a little like Chipper Jones.
"Those were the only games we got then. A lot of kids wanted to wear their socks like Chipper," Jimenez said.
And here he was Saturday, at 26, an emerging star for the Colorado Rockies, wearing out Jones and the rest of the Braves.
To complete the first no-hitter in the 17-year history of the Rockies, Jimenez had to make one last tour of the heart of the Braves lineup in the ninth inning. Jones and Brian McCann represented the final two outs.
"Two of the best hitters in baseball," Jimenez said, smiling broadly. "I was wondering, why does it have to be them? Can't they give me a break?"
He got Jones to pop up to right on a 1-and-2 fastball, then kept feeding more fastballs to McCann until he buried one in tight that the Braves catcher could only weakly ground to second.
His last pitch, the 128th of his night, was clocked at 97 mph. Three times in the second inning, he was measured at 100 mph.
Seemed the only thing that could have stopped Jimenez was a Georgia Highway Patrolman handing out a super-speeder ticket.
Of such numbers is history made.
"This couldn't happen to a better human being, or a more talented one," said Rockies manager Jim Tracy.
Jimenez last season was a 15-game winner with the lowest season ERA (3.47) in the history of a team known to chew up pitchers at high altitude.
He led the Rockies in strikeouts each of the past two seasons. In five previous appearances versus the Braves since 2007, he was 1-3 with one no-decision in five appearances since 2007
Jimenez entered Saturday night 2-0 with a 2.25 ERA. He left 3-0, the ERA shrunken to 1.29.
He was far from perfect, walking six in the first five innings. But on the suggestion of Rockies pitching coach Bob Apodaca, Jimenez began pitching from the stretch from the sixth inning on. The control problems went away, and so did the Braves, falling 4-0. Jimenez struck out seven.
The Braves recorded only six outfield outs and only a couple of seriously hit balls.
That's where the quick-as-a-hiccup center fielder from Roswell came in as a co-author of this no-hitter with the Flubber-armed pitcher from Naqua, Dominican Republic.
Milton High's Dexter Fowler saved the no-hitter with a fully extended diving catch of a Troy Glaus drive in the seventh. He then made a shoestring catch coming in on a fly ball from the next hitter, Yunel Escobar.
"I didn't think he had any chance to catch that ball [off Glaus' bat]," Jimenez said. "I could just say, ‘Wow, unbelievable.'"
"It was awesome," Fowler said of being a notable part of the franchise's first no-hitter. "Everyone wants to be the first at something good, and this was great."
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