Saturday, April 21, Sean Manaea of the Oakland Athletics threw MLB’s first no hitter of the season. This is a moment that will go down in A’s history forever. To make this accomplishment even greater for Manaea it came against the hottest team in baseball, the Boston Red Sox. The Red Sox, prior to being no hit, had won 8 straight games and lead the MLB with a record of 17-2. This no hitter was very unusual because Sean Manaea is not one of the best pitchers in the Major Leagues. Manaea is 26 years old and is in his 3rd year in the big leagues. Over those three years pitching in the minors Manaea has been good at times but also inconsistent. His career ERA was a 3.92, which isn’t anything spectacular. Despite not having been amazing over his 3 years in the league, he was pretty amazing against the Red Sox on Saturday. Manaea was completely on fire that game, finishing it with 10 strikeouts.
The perfect game was broken up with the first batter of the game, Mookie Betts, who Manaea walked. The game was in the control of Sean Manaea the whole time, as he threw only 108 pitches. The Red Sox came into this game with the second longest streak of not being on the wrong end of a no hitter. (3,987 games). This was the 12th no hitter in the Athletics’ franchise history. The last no hitter thrown by an A’s pitcher was a perfect game. Dallas Braden was the pitcher for the A’s who threw the perfect game. This was a once in a lifetime performance by the young pitcher Sean Manaea.