It will be ten years tomorrow. The day Johan Santana threw the first no-hitter in the history of the New York Mets Franchise.
Earlier tonight the Mets had a ceremony to celebrate the occasion, and Santana was in attendance along with his old manager, Terry Collins. Collins was the one who made the choice to keep Santana in even though he had a very high pitch count, finishing the game with 134.
Many people believe this historical game was the final nail in the coffin of an injury-filled career for Santana, but he says he wouldn’t go back and change anything.
Both the lefty and the manager have gotten some criticism for how everything played out. In today’s game, we see pitchers pulled from no-hitters all the time. Avoiding high pitch counts is much more important than writing history apparently, no matter how frustrating it is for us fans to see a pitcher get yanked after 7 innings with no hits allowed and 90 pitches.
Santana had struggled with injuries up to that point and had just come back from shoulder surgery a year prior. He then tore his shoulder during 2013’s Spring Training, tore his chilies the year after, and tried to come back in 2015 with the Blue Jays before a toe infection derailed that campaign for him in June.
This piece was written using information from AMNY
