Blangraphs

May 3, 2012. Joe Blanton squinted in the Atlanta sun and walked onto the field with a slight spring in his step. In the home dugout, Chipper Jones shook his wizened head and thoughtfully chewed a massive lump of tobacco. He was sure that his team would make quick work of the Phillies. After all, only fifteen hours had passed since Jones had slammed an 11th inning home run to walk off with a victory. Turning to outfielder Jason Heyward, at 22 years old a kid one-third his age, Jones grunted "What's Blanton so happy about?" Heyward shrugged and began taking cuts with an imaginary bat, putting together a highlight reel of speculative glory. They would get their answer soon enough.

Stepping onto the mound, Blanton wiped his brow and cleared the dust from the pitching rubber with a languid kick. It was the bottom of the first inning at Turner Field, and the Phillies already had the lead. What he seemed to know, what seemed impossible at the time, was that the one run that Hunter Pence had knocked in would be plenty for Joe.

The home half of the first would be the most difficult for Blanton. He gave up a single, faced four batters, and had to throw 17 pitches. After that, batters were soon swinging awkwardly or late, and many Braves hitters walked back to the dugout with disgusted looks on their faces. One of the three hits Blanton gave up was an infield single by David Ross, who got a head start to first base because he almost fell towards first base during his swing.

One by one, the Braves lineup fell in line. Many fearsome hitters, including Freddie Freeman, Dan Uggla, and Heyward, came up with 0-fers. Chipper Jones had the day off, and could only watch with awe from the bench. The Braves pitchers did a competent job, with eight strong innings from Randall Delgado and an appearance by the legendary Livan Hernandez. "Ted Williams and Willie Mays couldn't have hit Blanton today" said Heyward after the game. He shook his head and looked out at the empty field for a while, then slowly made his way towards the dugout.

In California, Jered Weaver was just waking up as Blanton was entering the eighth inning. At that point, the Braves had only managed two singles, no walks, and no runs. "I checked my phone and I had hundreds of texts" said Weaver, who had thrown a 121-pitch no-hitter the previous night against the Twins. "The first ones I checked were from my brother Jeff. One was like 'hey, great job dude!' and then the next was 'but whoa check out Blanton, it's not a no-no but I'm just sayin'." Blanton's amazing outing took only 88 pitches and there were no walks or errors. He faced the same number of batters that Weaver had the previous night, 29. "Jeff told me that a no-hitter was something special, in another league" Jered Weaver said, "but he was like 'Joe did all that AND got a hit.' Mad props to 56."


Disclaimer: All quotes and sentiments attributed to real-life people are fabricated. All images are lifted from other sources for humorous purposes.