Iwakuma pitches no-hitter for Seattle Mariners

The 27-year-old left-hander tied his mentor Sandy Koufax’s franchise record of six straight 200-strikeout seasons while tossing eight scoreless innings, and the NL West-leading Los Angeles Dodgers defeated the Washington Nationals 3-0 Wednesday night for their 17th shutout win.

Iwakuma learned that several Japanese TV stations switched from their regular programming to cover his no-hit quest in the later innings. So the magnitude of what he had accomplished hadn’t really set in as the team crossed the country. His home run in the 9th inning was an important moment in a great baseball game. We were up in the air on a five-hour flight. “I’ve only seen it on the news in the past”. But when I landed, I got to see everything.

“I missed a lot of time in the first half of the season”, he said.

Iwakuma had over 100 texts from friends, family and former teammates. The game will be broadcast on Root Sports and 710-AM. Things have not exactly worked out for either club, and the Red Sox will be trying to climb out of last place in the American League at the expense of the similarly-struggling Mariners when the teams open a three-game series in Boston on Friday. Several Nippon Professional League teams were in the midst of workouts and the game was being broadcast on the stadium big screens.

“It’s a brilliant achievement by the 2nd Japanese-born player following Nomo!” Iwakuma has thrown 107 pitches.

“It’s an honor”, Iwakuma said.

“I didn’t know much about the history until that day”, he said.

“To be honest with you, I never thought that I would accomplish this no-hitter”.

Since the trade deadline passed, Iwakuma is pitching some the best baseball of his career. They are still pretty special, no matter what the circumstance or situation is. He turned the Orioles’ aggressiveness – or, as I like to call it, their self-defeating lack of plate discipline – against them so masterfully that the no-hitter seemed like a no-brainer by the sixth inning.

Iwakuma walked Chris Davis with two outs, but he struck out Jimmy Paredes to end the threat.

“You don”™t have the confidence to say, “˜Hey, I can throw the ball for a strike and, hopefully, he doesn”™t hit it.”™ I may have been nibbling a little bit with my slider, trying to keep it down.”. “You look at Koji (Uehara) on the other side (Boston) or (Hiroki) Kuroda, who pitched for the Yankees until last year and is pitching now in Japan for the Hiroshima Carp”.

Would he like to continue with the Mariners? The Seattle Times reports that the Mariners are “likely” to sign back Iwakuma and that the pitcher wants to remain in Seattle. The only Mariner with more than one hit was center fielder Austin Jackson who hit two doubles in his first two at-bats.