A person could watch baseball for a long time and never see something like what happened Sunday, when nine Braves pitchers combined for a 10-inning no-hitter against the Astros in a Grapefruit League game that ended in a 2-2 tie.
Five of those pitchers walked a total of nine batters in six innings, but none of the eight allowed a hit against a split-squad Astros team that included leadoff man Jose Altuve, who led the majors with 225 hits and a .341 batting average last season.
“I knew (they had a no-hitter going) from like the sixth inning on,” Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said. “It didn’t feel like it; what did we end up walking, 11? Nine? I’ve never seen that. Only in spring training do you see weird stuff like a 10-inning no-hitter and 2-2 score.
“With the wind blowing in, there were some balls hit pretty good. But I think overall we got our work in.”
Cody Martin, starting on short notice in place of sore-shouldered Mike Minor, pitched two innings with three walks and three strikeouts and moved himself into the discussion for one of two spots available in the rotation.
Eight other pitchers worked an inning apiece including veteran Jim Johnson and left-hander Josh Outman followed by six rookies or minor leaguers: Brandon Cunniff, Ian Thomas, prospects Mauricio Cabrera and Lucas Sims, Justin Jackson, and Jairo Heredia.
The last three of those pitchers are in minor league camp but were brought on the trip as roster extras for the day.
It was the first appearance in a major league spring training game for Cabrera and for Sims, one of the top prospects in the Braves organization. The Braves led 1-0 before Cabrera gave up two runs in the seventh after walking the first two batters of the inning and hitting the third with a pitch.
Left-hander Thomas walked three batters in the sixth inning before getting out unscathed with a flyball.
“Thomas came in and walked three left-handers,” Gonzalez said. “And we got ourselves in a jam after that, Cabrera came in and got himself in a jam. I think he was just nervous. Young kid, 20 years old. I liked him, I liked Lucas Sims, those guys really threw the ball well. It’s a little getting used to – both of those guys, it’s their first time in camp, first outing, it’s hard to get the juices to calm down a little bit.”’
The Braves got a run in the first inning when Jace Peterson led off with a single, advanced on a groundout and scored on A.J. Pierzynski’s two-out single. Their other run came in the eighth after a leadoff double by Joey Terdoslavich, who advanced on a sacrifice bunt and came home with the tying run on Todd Cunningham’s sacrifice fly.
