JT Ginn Took a No-Hitter Into the Ninth Inning, Then Lost It in the Most Heartbreaking Way Possible
JT Ginn had thrown eight no-hit innings against the Angels. He walked off the mound an inning later as the losing pitcher.
The Athletics’ 26-year-old right-hander was working on the kind of game that gets named after you. Eight innings, zero hits, one-run lead, pitch count around 100. Mark Kotsay decided he’d earned a chance at history and sent him back out for the ninth at Angel Stadium.
Six pitches later, Ginn was a footnote.
Adam Frazier led off the bottom of the ninth with a clean single up the middle, ending the no-hitter on pitch one. Two batters later, Zach Neto crushed a two-run homer over the center field wall. Final score: Angels 2, Athletics 1. Ginn took the loss.
The last time an Athletics starter lost a no-hitter in the ninth was Vida Blue against Detroit in 1976. That is the kind of company nobody asks to keep.
Should Ginn Have Been Pulled?
Mark Kotsay knew the second-guessing was coming. He addressed it after the game and stood behind the decision to let Ginn finish what he started. The pitch count was reasonable. The stuff still looked sharp. Ginn had earned the right to walk out for the ninth.
That’s the right take, even with the result. There is no version of modern baseball where a pitcher with a no-hitter and 99 pitches gets pulled before the ninth inning. Fans would have rioted. Ginn would have spent the rest of his career wondering. The story would have been a different kind of disaster.
But the call to leave him in to face Neto after Frazier’s single is where the conversation gets interesting. The no-hitter was already gone. The lead was still there. The Athletics had a closer ready in the bullpen. Kotsay chose to ride Ginn one more batter.
Neto made him pay.
What This Loss Means for the Athletics
The Athletics are a team that does not have many feel-good nights to spare. They’re playing in front of small crowds in Sacramento while they wait on the Las Vegas relocation, and Ginn has been one of the genuine bright spots in their rotation this season.
Losing a game like this, where you outpitched the other team for nine innings and walked away with nothing, is the kind of loss that lingers. It hurts more than a blowout. It hurts more than a tight loss in a normal game. Coming this close to history and ending up on the wrong side of the line takes time to shake.
The good news for Ginn is that he showed every team in baseball what he’s capable of. Eight innings of no-hit ball against a Major League lineup is the kind of performance that follows a young pitcher around for a long time, even when the final line shows a loss.
Neto’s Moment
Zach Neto deserves his share of the headlines. He went up against a pitcher in a flow state, in a hostile situation, with the game on the line. He swung at a 1-0 fastball and put it in the seats. That’s a star making a star play.
Neto has been the kind of player the Angels have desperately needed. With Mike Trout still trying to stay on the field consistently and the rest of the lineup looking for someone to take pressure off the top, Neto has stepped up. This homer was the loudest evidence yet.
For Ginn, the next start can’t come soon enough. For the Athletics, the rebuild keeps grinding forward. And for everyone else, this is a reminder that baseball has the cruelest cliffs of any sport. Eight perfect innings can disappear in six pitches.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
