MySports Today

Mark Buerhle pitched a perfect game against the Tampa Bay Rays on Thursday afternoon and then retired the 1st 17 batters that he faced in last night’s 5-3 loss to the Twins in Minnesota.  The 45 outs in a row was a new Major League Baseball record for most consecutive outs recorded.  The previous record was 41 batters – San Francisco’s Jim Barr did so in 1972 and Buerhle’s teammate Bobby Jenks did so in 2007.  D Span ended Buerhle’s no-hit bid with a bloop single to center field with 2 outs in the 6th inning.  The Twins scored 1 run that inning off of Buerhle on Joe Mauer’s RBI double and then 4 more runs in the bottom of the 7th inning to take control of the game.

Buerhle could ot focus on the record after the frustrating loss at the Metrodome:  “It’s frustrating after a loss.  It might mean more tomorrow or the next day once I cool off.  But I’m not too happy right now…I’m not a big fan of broken-bat, bloop singles.  It just seems like any time at this place you just know it’s going to happen.  You could be up 10-0 in the ninth inning and something’s going to happen in that inning.”

The White Sox have been in a tailspin since Buerhle’s perfect game, losers of 5 of 6 games.  The White Sox and Twins are currently tied for 2nd place in the AL Central, 2 games behind the Detroit Tigers.

As we reported yesterday, Mark Buerhle threw the 18th perfect game in MLB history ni Thursday’s 5-0 win over the Tampa Bay Rays.  After we did some digging on the perfect game, we came up with a few interesting facts.

First, home plate umpire Eric Cooper was also behind the plate for Buerhle’s no-hitter at U.S. Cellular Field back in April 2004 when Buerhle no-hit the Texas Rangers.  Buerhle also faced just 27 batters in that game – Buerhle walked Sammy Sosa to end the perfect game but picked him off of 1st base to maintain the 27-batter minimum.  Pretty random.

Second, cather Ramon Castro caught Mark Buerhle for the 1st time ever in Thursday’s game.  Buerhle typically has his regular catcher A.J. Pierzynski behind the plate (as he did for his no-hitter back in 2004), but because the White Sox were set to play 4 games in 3 days against the 1st place Tigers over the weekend, Manager Ozzie Guillen wanted to give Pierzynski the day off so that he would be able to play each day over the weekend. Castro spoke with both Buerhle and Pierzynski before the game to go over the game plan, and surely benefited from the fact that Buerhle works quickly and rarely shakes off the catcher’s call during a game.  Pierzynski and Buerhle even joked around about Buerhle throwing a no-hitter or perfect game on Thursday, so good things come to those who wait I guess.

Congrats Mark – it couldn’t have happened to a better guy…

27 up, 27 down – Mark Buehrle entered the history books by throwing the 18th perfect game in Major League history.  It was the 1st perfect game thrown in the big leagues since the Diamondback’s Randy Johnson threw a perfect game against the Atlanta Braves back in 2004.  Manager Ozzie Guillen and outfielder DeWayne Wise get a big assist – Guillen inserted Wise into the game in the 9th inning in center field for defensive purposes.  The Rays gabe Kapler hit a bomb to left center field that Wise tracked down and knocked back into the playing field by leaping over the center field fence.  The ball almost popped out of Wise’s glove, but as he fell to the ground, he managed to scoop the ball up bear-handed and put it back in his glove to preserve the out.  Buerhle then struck out Michel Hernandez and got Jason Bartlett to ground out to shortstop to complete the 116-pitch perfect game.

Buerhle had this to say about Wise’s catch and the amazing feat – - “I was hoping it was staying in there, give him enough toom to catch it.  I know the guys were doing everything they could to save the no-hitter, the perfect game, whatever it might be… I don’t know if it’s really sunk in yet.  We have a short flight to Detroit.  I’m sure it will be a little hectic later.”

Buerhle faced the minimum 27 batters back in his April 2007 no-hitter against the Texas Rangers.  He picked off Sammy Sosa after walking him to negate the perfect game.  He became only the 2nd player to throw 2 no-hitters in a White Sox uniform – Frank Smith did so against Detroit in 1905 and against the Philadelphia Athletics in 1908.  Charles Robertson threw the White Sox’ only other perfect game back in 1922 against the Detroit Tigers.

President Barack Obama – a lifelong White Sox fan – called Buerhle after the win to offer his congratulations.  And while it probably doesn’t mean as much – congrats to you Mark from all of us here at MySportsToday.com!