TORONTO – Dave Stieb’s no-hitter still stands alone in Toronto Blue Jays history, although Bowden Francis’s second near-miss in the span of four starts suggests that he may yet one day join him.
The 28-year-old right-hander, who on Aug. 24 threw eight hitless innings against the Los Angeles Angels before Taylor Ward’s leadoff homer in the ninth, again lost his bid with three outs to go, this time broken up by a Francisco Lindor solo shot in what finished as a 6-2 New York Mets victory.
Francis was up 0-2 in the count when Lindor, an MVP contender in the National League, turned on a 91.9-m.p.h. heater up and away and sent it over the wall in right field, eliciting a loud groan from the Rogers Centre crowd of 29,399 on Wednesday.
In that way, the ending was eerily similar to the bid against the Angels, but he was at 117 pitches last time, while this time he was at pitch 111, leaving him better positioned to finish off the outing.
The game unravelled once he left, as Chad Green allowed a Jose Iglesias infield single before walks to Mark Vientos and Brandon Nimmo. Pete Alonso’s sacrifice fly then put the Mets ahead 2-1. Starling Marte added another sacrifice while Francisco Alvarez tagged Genesis Cabrera for a three-run homer later in the inning to extend New York’s lead.
That made for a dismal ending to an otherwise remarkable day in which Francis once again displayed the ability to confound opposing batters, even with his fastball averaging 90.8 m.p.h., 2.4 m.p.h. off his average, while topping out at just 93.3.
The only no-hitter in Blue Jays history remains Stieb’s gem Sept. 2, 1990 at Cleveland, which came after he lost a perfect game and two other no-hitters – in back-to-back September 1988 outings – with two out in the ninth.
There have been several other near-misses for the Blue Jays including arguably the most dominant outing in team history on Aug. 8, 2010, when Brandon Morrow struck out 17 batters but lost his no-hit bid with two out in the ninth on an Evan Longoria infield single.
Like Francis, Dustin McGowan also lost a no-hit bid on a leadoff hit in the ninth, a Jeff Baker single for Colorado on June 24, 2007.
During this current run for Francis, he also opened an Aug. 29 start with 5.1 no-hit innings at Boston while on Aug. 12 at Anaheim, the only hit against him was a third-inning homer by Mickey Moniak in seven innings.
Since rejoining the Blue Jays as a starter following a stint at triple-A Buffalo on July 29, Francis has been a different pitcher from the one who began the season in the rotation but quickly found himself bouncing between roles around a stint on the injured list.
Underpinning the better results has been the use of a far more effective splitter and a shift in usage from what had been mostly a fastball-curveball repertoire.
Against the Mets, when he allowed just a walk and two hit batters before the Lindor home run, he threw 57 fastballs in his 111 pitches despite the dip in velocity, complementing it with his slider (19), splitter (17), curveball (11) and sinker (8).
The mix induced plenty of harmless contact and on the rare occasions someone did square the ball up, his defence was there behind him, with Davis Schneider notably making a leaping catch into the left-field wall on Harrison Bader’s smash to open the sixth.
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Before the game, manager John Schneider once again praised the adjustments Francis had made, including to his work between starts, with the splitter being an addition “that plays a big part of it.”
“The fact that the split carries the zone the way it does – there aren’t many in the dirt, they’re called strikes, too,” he continued. “Not being predictable. That pitch is hard to hit and it’s hard to locate. So when you’re locating it, you’re usually pretty good. He’s kind of using the curveball to either steal a strike, get ahead or get back into counts, and then sinker-slider. It’s a totally different mix than what he had earlier out of the ‘pen. Every time he throws a pitch, you go, good time for that. You can see him figuring out how his stuff works together.”
Like against the Angels nearly three weeks ago, that carried him to the verge of a second Blue Jays no-hitter, an achievement seemingly just as elusive as the first.