Triston Mckenzie - So Close To History

It was a historic day Sunday for Indians young pitcher Triston McKenzie, who took a no-no and a perfect game into the 8th inning of the Indians blowout win over the Detroit Tigers at Comerica Park. McKenzie looks like an ace for the Tribe, and it looks like he's ready to earn his spot in the starting bill for the 2022 season.

Indians starting pitcher Triston McKenzie was so close to etching his name in Major League Baseball history. 

The hard-throwing right hander was four outs shy of a perfect game in Sunday’s start against the Tigers in Detroit. There have only been 24 perfect games in MLB History.

Who ruined the fun? Tigers’ Harold Castro lined a single to right in the 8th inning.

It’s quite ironic that the one game the Indians get an absolutely incredible pitching performance, the offense puts up an 11-spot and the team wins the game by a landslide, 11-0. This is not to dispute McKenzie’s performance, but just to simply say the technically the rookie could’ve given up 10 runs and the Indians still would’ve won the game.

On the season, the 6’ 5” 165-pound 24-year-old is 2-5 with a 5.12 ERA in 17 starts. Those are not very good numbers, but this recent amazing outing may show the rookie is turning a corner so to speak.

Cleveland has two perfect games pitched in franchise history out of said 24.

The first being Addie Joss on Oct. 2, 1908 against Chicago. The team was named the Cleveland Naps at the time and beat the White Sox 1-0 at League Park.

The last but first in the designated hitter era of Major League Baseball being Len Barker against the Toronto Blue Jays on May 15, 1981 at Cleveland Stadium. The Indians won the affair by a score of 3-0.

Well, Triston. it’s still certainly an impressive outing and hopefully the beginning of more great pitching to come in the future. Many more years for the right hander to prepare for moving forward as McKenzie is only a rookie.

Unfortunately, the Indians may not be playoff-bound this season with a 57-59 record that puts them 10 games behind the Chicago White Sox in the AL Central. Additionally, the team is behind Los Angeles, Seattle, Toronto and New York for the AL Wild Card. Thus, it’s a bleak outlook with a month and a half left in the regular season.

Even so, it’s performances like this one from Triston McKenzie that make it worth watching the baseball team that may not be October-bound.

Congratulations to Triston on such an amazing outing.