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23,441.
I'm guessing this is the first no-hitter thrown on a "neutral field" (heh), at least since the 19th century.
After all the Astros have been through the past few days, I think they count.
All of us were down on this team over the last two weeks and they could easily go back to that starting tomorrow afternoon. But if nothing else, tonight's game was just another one of those footnotes in the Cubs' long season that separates this team from previous playoff-bound Cub teams.
They were also the victims of the Kerry Wood 20 K game, the most dominant 9 inning pitching performance ever.
Yeah, but that wasn't an "Exceptional for reasons other than dominance" no-hitter, like the 6 pitcher interleague play no hitter and the neutral field hurricane no hitter were.
Wish I could have seen more than just the 9th. Stupid espn blackout. Thatll teach me to come to nyc again.
As the gap between the Cubs and Brewers increases in the standings, it's the Cub/Brewer/Bear/Packer symbiosis kicking in further - Rodgers exceeds initial expectations, and the Bears start their losing.
Aside from the Wood game, the closest I remember seeing a Cub pitcher get to a no-hitter was this game, where Chuck Rainey's got broken up with 2 outs in the 9th.
Well, it was Wood's 5th ML start.
I'll gladly see the Bears go 0-16 for the rest of my life to see the Cubs win the World Series.
Since 1956, there have only been two Cubs starts with higher game scores than this one, Wood's famous 20 K start, with a record nine inning game score of 105, and this 2001 start by Wood.
There have been two other starts since 1956 with a 96 game score. One was Ken Holtzman's 12-inning 1971 no-hitter against the Pirates. The other was this late-1995 season one-hit gem by Frank Castillo, against the Cardinals.
Congrats! Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
Of course...no hitters on the brain.
It's impossible to forget how horrible those Cub teams of 2005 and 2006 were, but it still blows the mind to see the likes of Burnitz, Hairston, Neifi, and Hollandsworth in that lineup and know that, with exception to Hairston, those weren't back-up guys. Not in Dusty's mind, anyway. Looking back at lineups like that make you confident in knowing that even with a healthy Wood and Prior, the Cubs would've probably still struggled.
ZambraNo-No, anyone?
I also recall watching the Frank Castillo one -- would have been way up there on the list of least likely no-hitters ever. I recall the ump having a strike zone about 4 feet wide and Castillo not throwing a single pitch within a foot of the plate all day but my memory may be off (could have been Chuck Rainey's effort! :-)
And the Cubs are still working on the record for longest string of not being no-hit aren't they?
Link
The "drag ass" effect wouldn't seem to hold either. Wood pitched on Wed, one day after the Astros beat up on the Cubs 10-5 and they had the day off on Monday. Except for Jack Howell (batting cleanup) and Dave Clark, both lefties, that was their regular lineup.
As to Wood, he threw just 122 pitches that day despite all the Ks. Alas, between that start on May 6 and his injury on Aug 31, he threw 8 games of 120+ pitches. All told he averaged 108.5 pitches.
Not that you should draw any conculsions from that.
Why watch the games? More fun to simulate anyway. This #### happens all thje time in my dmb league. Nothing worth watching happened, all a fluke. Baseball isn't fun, its allabout the projections.
it was actually just a shutout, but your point is still valid.
Except of course the little nubber that Z ran in grabbed and got the hitter by a couple steps. Pretty much a carbon copy of the play Sabathia couldn't make in his no-hit bid.
Just an incredible performance.
Did you buy your tix online?
Only field and loge seats are open for the series.
I can just imagine the Appletonians who thought their summer employment with the Timber Rattlers was at an end getting an emergency call and offered triple-time pay to come down to Milwaukee and work two Cubs-Astros games.
Not sure. It was the vendor (SportService) that did that - they called in some of their employees from other cities.
One of the vendors in my area lives about 3 miles away from me on the southside. So at least one vendor came in from Chicago.
EDIT: Maybe it was online only where you could buy upper deck seats, but they had all vending areas fully staffed at least from 424-430.
You can't buy terrace for Monday online - it says they're not being sold (I just checked).
Went and checked, I can't believe they're charging full price for tomorrow too. It made sense for tonight, but who's gonna be at this game besides Marquette and UWM students?
I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that you will be able to get the entire game through iTunes. MLBAM has a "TV Show" there called "Instant Classics" (or something like that) where you get the broadcast of notable games for ~$3. I picked up Lester's (and Buchholz's) no-no just a day or two latter.
Thought I read someplace that the sausages didn't show (unlike in last year's Angels/Indians game at Miller), but they did sing "Roll out the Barrel."
Fox Sports notes that most Astros-involved no-hitters have had something unusual associated with them.
The motherf*ckers don't even work. That's why they're out at the f*ckin' game. They oughta go out and get a f*ckin' job and find
out what it's like to go out and earn a f*ckin' living. Eighty-five percent of the f*ckin' world is working. The other fifteen percent come out here. A f*ckin' playground for the cocks*ckers.
After hearing him in a radio interview last year, that's the best part of Z's no-hitter. I don't think I've ever before found an athlete so obnoxious in so many ways in just 8 minutes.
I'm sure baseball chick and her kids would have made a difference.
If they were, it was by their own owner.
-- MWE
-signed CC
You're right. They ought to play all 162 games on the road.
You can talk about whether the Astros ownership put the team into this predicament -- that's what we were talking about over the weekend. But it's sheer nonsense to deny that the Astros were disadvantaged playing at Miller Park with 20,000 vocal Cubs fans and relatively few (if any) Astros fans.
The important thing for that Astros isn't that they were no-hit, it was that they lost, and I think they would have lost in any venue with Zambrano dealing what he was dealing.
Did the Astros have a lot of false-start penalties because the crowd noise was too much? Were the easily swayed umps calling more blocking fouls on the Astros than they would have if the game were at Minute Maid?
Like McCoy, I'd seriously like to know how fans themselves impact a baseball game.
The mechanism is probably psychological.
Do you believe that home/road records are due to purely physical characteristics of the ballpark?
You've never heard of a home-field advantage? Seriously?
I'm not saying the Astros would've won last night if the game were played elsewhere. Having said that, if you'd like, I could probably drag out hundreds of quotes from baseball players saying that the crowd gave them a boost, but I really don't think it's necessary. Is it?
Agreed. Last time he had an extended rest (his 2-start DL stint in June), he was absolutely lights out for six weeks when he returned, so perhaps we'll see a redux.
Of course -- that's because the teams have extreme short-term memory. They don't ever remember playing in Miller Park before. Heck, they couldn't even find the right dugouts!
Will you stop tossing this strawman out there? Jesus, it's getting annoying.
Only due to those characteristics, no? I believe the biggest advantage is psychological, with the rest attributable to some combination of ballpark characteristics (players knowledge of the setting and limited ability to tailor a roster that takes advantage of those characteristics), comfort in playing near your actual physical home (without travel) and possibly, last licks.
But in this case, the only way this was a Cubs home game was a very modest travel advantage and whatever impact having more fans can have. And I'm seriously stumped what kind of advantage home fans play in baseball.
Of course -- that's because the teams have extreme short-term memory. They don't ever remember playing in Miller Park before. Heck, they couldn't even find the right dugouts!
So Florida's 600 fans give them that boost they need to have the same home field advantage?
What is home field advantage? The crowd is probably one small part of it. Outside of the crowd the Cubs were in the same boat as the Astros. The Cubs were in the Brewers clubhouse, the Brewers dugout, playing on a field that was not their own, and doing so on short notice. So again what is home field advantage? Why do home teams win more games at home then lose? You honestly believe it is because of the crowd? Do you honestly believe the crowd is a big chunk of the reason?
If so can you imagine what home records would have looked like 100 years ago if they could have gotten 40,000 to 50,000 fans cheering for the home team every game?
Surely a substantial part of the advantage is the ability to play for however many runs you need in the bottom of the 9th or later innings, right? For instance, if the visitor gets three in the top of the ninth, the home team will not be foolish enough to bunt the leadoff man over. The visitor, now knowing the home team will score three in their half, has no such luxury.
True, but what about games decided before the 9th inning?
They may have lost an extra 0.05 expected wins by playing in Milwaukee rather than Tampa. But gained a lot of money in that trade off.
Boo friggin hoo.
I don't think anyone is saying it doesn't exist, I think most people (or at least I am) are saying that whatever the impact was it was miniscule last night.
Again the Astros are a team that could have rolled over and played dead earlier in the season. They did not, and not dying is a pretty clear and known event in recent Astros history. So I don't think we are dealing with a bunch of fragiles psyches here who are going to be heavily swayed by the laundry in the stands.
By the way the Astros are 37-38 on the road, in a year when only 6 teams are above .500 and only one of them significantly. Besides the Angels all 5 other teams are within 4 games of .500. So apparently the Astros are up to the challenge of crowds cheering against them.
A little bit? I would think, though I can't prove, that the bulk of the .035 over .500 advantage comes from batting last.
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What would be the parameters for that research? Would it be batting last in terms of just the 9th, batting last and always reacting to what the away team did on offense every inning?
Or is it just the 9th inning all by itself? Meaning if the home team is leading they can then put in their best reliever and best defensive players if they want to hold the opposing team. While the away team has to be careful with their sub usage since they have to play the 9th. Plus if the away team isn't leading then they might never use their "best" reliever in the game and allowing the home team to score the necessary final runs. And if the home team isn't leading they know exactly how many runs they need to win and for the most part they can pull out all the stops to try and get those runs (though they do have to consider a tie)
Someone must have figured this out. What's the percentage of games in which the home team is leading after 7 or 8 innings? That should distill out the advantage in the ninth or later.
1. I was just quoting what ESPN radio reported on the upper deck seating. Thanks for clearing it up, SouthsideRyan. I'm jealous... I was about to road trip up there, but wimped out - from NW 'burbs, it's about as convenient as Wrigley.
2. They also said on the ESPN radio report that the gun was fast, showing Z at 99 MPH. In his post-game interview, he said that he saw the 99, and was inspired... that may have had something to do with him being psyched up.
3. Too bad about the prices today, I could break free, but at the prices they want for a Monday afternoon game, no thanks.
You have no way of knowing that.
So I don't think we are dealing with a bunch of fragiles psyches here who are going to be heavily swayed by the laundry in the stands.
When have I ever said this? Jeez, if retro is going to get on my case claiming my "why don't they play all 162 games on the road" is a straw-man, then surely the "fragile psyches" line is as well.
Your "why don't they play all 162 games on a road" is a strawman because:
(1) nobody's arguing that'd be fair under any circumstances, and
(2)more specifically, it's completely fatuous to suggest that it follows, from saying it's reasonable to ask a team to play two games in a not-particularly-favorable alternate site when
(a)that team's home city has been hit by a catastrophic storm that renders the city inaccessible,
(b) the team knew (or should have anticipated) days in advance that such inaccessibility was likely,
(c) the team insisted, despite that high risk, on rejecting alternate arrangements (some of which would have been less unfavorable than what they ended up getting stuck with) anyway until the number of feasible options was severely limited, and
(d) the team was well aware, when rejecting alternate sites, that the opportunities for in-season makeup games were virtually nil given the two involved teams' remaining schedules,
that one should be equally comfortable with saying "hell with it--they should be content with 162 road games."
Tom Meagher wrote an article about three years ago in THT in which he pointed out that much of HFA can be explained by home-team batters walking more and striking out less than do visiting team batters.
-- MWE
Did they ever find out what happened to his wife? That was always a weird story...
Except McCoy, who believes there is no unfairness in playing on the road because of air travel and because players don't have "fragile psyches" and can deal with laundry.
I wasn't basing my statement on McCoy's claim wrt these two games in particular; he was making claims that apply to road games in general. In any event, I wasn't denying that I was exaggerating McCoy's argument a bit; I was simply pointing out that the "fragile psyches" line is at least as exaggerated as my line.
Furthermore, your points (a)-(d) are all variations of the "McLane screwed the team over" argument that we went through over the weekend. It has nothing to do with the issue at hand, namely whether Houston was disadvantaged having to play in Milwaukee versus, say, Tampa.
But, in that sport the announcer/music guy has a stronger impact, the give-and-take with fans is more immediate. A baseball player could close his eyes and not know which stadium he was in - fans get equally loud when they want a hit or a strikeout, and there isn't even an equivalent of "D-fence! D-fence!"
She drove her car into a pond not far from their house. Police theorized she was drinking at the time and may have mistaken a driveway into the pond for one leading to their subdivision.
I don't know. Though I'm not an NBA fan, I think the officiating in NBA games plays a big part in this advantage. Teams just seem to get more calls at home.
But wouldn't Cubs fans vastly outnumber Astros fans in Tampa as well? Or just about anywhere outside the Houston metropolitan area?
I do think the Astros are at a psychological disadvantage in these games. I also believe that it's largely self-inflicted. If they'd just said "Hey, we're still the home team, we're the hottest team in baseball and we just kicked their ass at their actual home field, so bring 'em on," instead of choosing to whine about the unfairness of it all, then the psychological edge would have been nil.*
* But, in all likelihood, it still wouldn't have helped them much against Zambrano.
I wish I was better at harvesting data.
Oh, I agree with this; I just believe it wouldn't have been 20,000:none.
In any event, we're running up against my 100 post limit, at which point I stop following threads (including this one) because, IMO, any discussions that go beyond that point have long exhausted their usefulness.
That's probably true but, to be fair, is there any ball park outside of Chicago where this would have been more pronounced than Milwaukee?
I do not believe this. What I said was in this instance the "unfairness" of playing in Milwaukee was miniscule. Houston got two days off, takes a three hour flight to Milwaukee. Chicago got two days off, took a two hour bus ride or train ride to Miwlaukee. Both teams are experiencing travel. Hell, a home team flying back from the west coast to play a series at home experiences the same thing as Houston just did and for whatever reason the home team wins more games then they lose. So how huge of an impact is air travel on this series? Especially after two days off.
My fragile psyche piece was a bit of a hyperbole for sure, but what the hell is it you guys are arguing about when you talk about 20,000 cubs fans in attendance? You act like these guys are a bunch of little leaguers were are going to hang their heads because their mommy isn't out there cheering for them.
The Astros suffered the disadvantage of not playing in Houston. They would experience that regardless of where they chose to play these games. The fact that it was in Milwaukee it seems has caused some to people that it created this extreme shift outside of simply playing outside of Houston. I don't believe playing in Milwaukee has caused a huge shift. I don't believe that the Houston Astros who have a history of not calling it quits is suddenly going to get all psyched out simply because of the color of the stadiums laundry.
Probably not. But I'm not sure what that means. At what point does the advantage of the home crowd start to take place? Is it at plus-10,000 fans? Plus 20,000? And whatever number it is, the Rays home record this year would seem to be serve as a counterargument.
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