In a time of bidding for perfect matches and no hitters, common baseball superstition dictates that the pitcher throws the jewel not to be disturbed. Teammates and coaches dodge.
But after Domingo Germán completed a perfect seventh inning Wednesday at the Oakland Coliseum, Yankees pitching coach Matt Blake sat beside him and chatted.
Breaking tradition doesn’t matter. Germán knocked out the next six players in Athletics for the 24th perfect game in Major League history with an 11-0 win.
“It was exciting,” Germán said in Spanish through an interpreter during his post-match on-field interview. “When you think about something so unique in baseball. Not many people get a chance to put together a perfect game and achieve something like this.”
After a relative series of them — two in 2010 and three in 2012 — almost 11 years have passed since Seattle Mariners star Félix Hernández unleashed the most recent perfect match.
Germán, who came into the game with an ERA 5.10 this season, remained spotless even after a lengthy delay in practice as his team took a six-point lead in the half. Thursday; when the Oakland pitcher died of an injury in the seventh inning; and when the Yankees continued to run more on the ninth inning. And he maintained his rhythm with two passes late in the eighth inning when a ball bounced off the Oakland stables and halted his game against Jonah Bride.
The humble crowd of 12,479 in Oakland, Calif., stood up as Germán took the field to start the ninth round and chanted “Let’s go, Yankees” as he faced the first half of the round.
Germán completed the perfect match by persuading Esteury Ruiz, Oakland’s speedy midfielder, to join a club with Hernández, a player he called his childhood “idol”.
“That last round was very different,” said Germán. “I felt a pressure that I had never felt before.”
He continued: “A lot of pressure but also very rewarding.”
Germán dedicated the show to an uncle of his, who passed away two days ago, who was “always the one who really brought so much joy to our family.”
“Yesterday I cried a lot,” he said. “I had him with me throughout the game.”
Teammates then flushed Germán with a cooler during his TV interview, and he posed for pictures with the game ball and his catcher, Kyle Higashioka, and then the rest of his teammates.
It was the fourth perfect match in Yankees history, following Don Larsen’s match in the 1956 World Series, David Wells’ match in 1998 and David Cone’s in 1999. It was also the second Yankees match to miss the target. in the past three seasons, after a Corey Kluber’s 2021 Performance against the Texas Rangers. Higashioka is behind the disc in both games.
Germán has been playing curvy pitching about 40% of the time this season, even more so than his quick ball, and Higashioka said it was the key pitch on Wednesday as Germán used it to hit the ball. scored 20 of his 27 appearances.
Higashioka said: “He was amazing tonight and he deserves the credit.
The masterpiece of a match is by far the highest point in an uneventful season for Germán. He was given a 10-match ban in mid-May for breaking the federation law on the use of foreign substances on the ball. He has put together strong runs, such as when he allowed just one run of more than 8 ⅓ rounds against Cleveland last month. But his previous two starts were a far cry from that performance, delivering 15 wins in 5 ⅓ innings against Boston and Seattle.
Uneven seasons are nothing new for German. During more than six years of playing in the professional league, he has had periods of success and failure, has been treated for numerous injuries and received an 81-match suspension spanning part of the 2019 season and the full year. 2020 for violating MLB’s domestic violence policy.
But for one night in Oakland, he kept everything together. He said he was thinking about perfection during Wednesday’s game. And, in the end, no one could touch him.
