PHILADELPHIA — The conversation in the tunnel behind the first-base dugout at Citizens Bank Park on Wednesday night wasn’t very long.
At the seventh-inning stretch, with starter Michael Lorenzen having thrown 100 pitches and allowed no hits, Phillies manager Rob Thomson had a simple question.
“Are you good?”
The answer, after a brief back and forth, led to a rejoinder from Thomson: You’ve got 20 pitches to finish that.
“I said, you better get quick outs,” Thomson recalled.
Lorenzen did that, and historically so.
It would take 124 pitches, far outstripping Lorenzen’s career high. But by the time Dominic Smith’s fly ball nestled into the glove of center fielder Johan Rojas for the final out in a 7-0 Phillies win, Lorenzen had his storybook moment: A no-hitter, in his first home start as a Phillie, with his family in the crowd.
“It’s unbelievable to be honest,” Lorenzen said. “I’ve always dreamt about being able to throw a no-hitter and having the opportunity. Skip gave me that opportunity to go 120-plus pitches, and it was incredible. Hats off to J.T. (Realmuto), Game 2 and me not shaking at all, and just being on the same page. I’m just blown away.”
The no-hitter is the 14th in Phillies history, just the second at Citizens Bank Park (joining Roy Halladay’s playoff no-hitter in 2010) and the first since Cole Hamels at Wrigley Field in 2015. It’s the first time Washington, which began play in 2005, has been no-hit.
Lorenzen allowed four walks and struck out five. He got ample weak content to the outfield, with 14 flyball outs, nine of them to Rojas in center.
He struggled a bit early, getting his pitch count elevated in the first inning. But he managed to work quickly through the middle innings with ease, not allowing a single National into scoring position. The succession of low-pressure outs accounted for his ability to stay in the game.
“In the first inning, he built up a lot of pitches, I think it 23 or 24 pitches,” Thomson said. “And then he walked the leadoff guy in the second inning. But then he settled in. I don’t know what happened. He started getting the ball down, started getting the ball over the plate, I thought his changeup was good. He started throwing strikes and getting quick outs. You wouldn’t have thought after the first three innings he would’ve gotten through nine.”
The dicey moment was after seven, with the Phillies up 6-0 and Yunior Marte ready in the bullpen.
Lorenzen, on his fourth team in three years, was injured last year and was a reliever as recently as 2021. He had only thrown 12 career 100-pitch games, including 101 in his first outing for the Phillies (an eight-inning gem in Miami) and a career-high 107 in his first outing for the Reds back in 2015.
It’s built on an All-Star season with Detroit, where in 18 starts he had a 5-7 record and 3.58 ERA but a WHIP of 1.098 and an opponents’ batting average of just .233. He was acquired at the trade deadline for minor-league infielder Hao-Yu Lee.
He didn’t think the no-no was a possibility until the fifth inning, at 1-2-3 through the bottom of the order. He admitted he didn’t have his best stuff, but with an adjustment with pitching coach Caleb Cotham to quickly rework his changeup in the two outings since being acquired from Detroit, he’s pitched brilliantly.
At 111 pitches after eight, and 2-3-4 due up in the ninth, there was no conversation, though Thomson was ready to go out there if player safety — with a bulletproof vest on, he joked — if it crept up to 130. The fact that the Phillies have two days off next week and might have skipped Lorenzen’s next start in the six-man rotation always was a mitigating factor, and Thomson said Lorenzen will go straight into “recovery mode” after this.
On his way out to the mound for the final time, Lorenzen led the crowd lift him.
“As I’m walking out, the fans going crazy, it’s hard not to get a lot of emotional, because this is what I’ve worked for,” he said. “This is a dream come true. I’m walking out for the ninth inning, I have given up no hits, I’m in a city like Philly, these guys are going crazy. I can’t hear the Pitch Comm – the Pitch Comm is all the way up to the highest level.
“It got a little emotional before that ninth inning started, and it gave my body that boost that I needed.”
Lane Thomas pounded out to Alec Bohm at third. Joey Meneses, whose homer won Game 2 of Tuesday’s doubleheader, whiffed. Then Smith lofted a ball for Rojas to float under.
With it, Lorenzen — with his mom, wife and 9-month-old daughter in the crowd, having flown in from Southern California to see his first home game as a Phillie — was able to float away on baseball’s cloud nine.
“My wife is as invested into this as I am,” Lorenzen said. “I lean on her for everything – ups, downs. She knows my strategy when I go out there pitching, so her reaction was incredible to see her on the field.”
Source: Berkshire mont
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