Final Score: Phillies 7, Nationals 0
After being acquired at last week’s trade deadline, Michael Lorenzen’s Phillies debut was a really good one. In a win over the Marlins, the right-hander pitched eight strong innings as he allowed just a pair of runs on six hits.
And while it didn’t feel like he could one-up himself in his second start for Philadelphia, he did just that tonight.
Through seven innings at Citizens Bank Park, Lorenzen kept the Nationals to no hits as he struck out four hitters and walked four on 100 pitches. So with that combination — a no-no and a high pitch count — the watch was on.
The right-hander returned to the mound for the eighth inning and delivered a quick, 11-pitch 1-2-3 inning — his fourth of the night — on a fly out, line out and another fly out by Blake Rutherford, Alex Call and CJ Abrams.
At 111 pitches, and two off days next week, manager Rob Thomson decided to roll with Lorenzen in the ninth in a pursuit of history. Lane Thomas started the inning by grounding out to third baseman Alec Bohm. It was then Joey Meneses’ turn at the plate and he went down looking for a strikeout.
And after a lengthy battle with Nationals cleanup hitter Dominic Smith, Lorenzen got Smith to pop up the seventh pitch of the at-bat to center field. Rookie Johan Rojas got an easy read on the ball and planted himself under it to finish off the 14th no-hitter in Phillies history — the first since Cole Hamels did so at Wrigley Field back on July 25, 2015:
Altogether, Lorenzen pitched nine no-hit innings with five strikeouts and four walks on a career-high 124 pitches. He also induced seven ground-ball outs and 15 fly ball outs.
As Lorenzen did his thing on the mound, the Phillies did their thing at the plate. They tagged Nationals starter MacKenzie Gore for six runs on seven hits through his five innings of work. And three of those runs were driven in by Nick Castellanos.
Castellanos went yard in the first inning for the 199th home run of his career:
And two innings later, he launched career home run No. 200 on a center-cut fastball:
All around, it was a memorable night in South Philly. Lorenzen threw the first no-hitter of his career. Castellanos reached 200 career homers. And on top of that, 28-year-old Weston Wilson — making his Major League debut — hit a homer in his first at-bat.
What a night.
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