Matz flirts with no-hitter, earns second win since May

Steven Matz was sailing along with a no-hitter intact, his pitch count climbing in 96-degree heat. San Diego has been the victim of a no-hitter 10 times in franchise history.

Santana, of course, got injured later that season and hasn’t made it back to the majors. “I haven’t pitched a ton of late, so it’ll be interesting to see how the pitch-count workload goes”, Richard said.

“Because my background in player development, I can’t stop looking at the big picture”, Collins said to Hatch.

The Mets added three insurance runs in the eighth, when Jose Reyes scored on a wild pitch and rookie T.J. Rivera – another NY product playing for his hometown team – hit a two-run double for his first career RBIs.

“Guess it was a coin flip”, Mets second baseman Neil Walker said. “He absolutely had no-hit stuff today. He’ll have another shot at it”. His 23rd homer drew groans from a crowd of 36,854 on the first Pride Night at Citi Field. On June 1, 2012, Collins let left-handed starter Johan Santana throw 134 pitches in a game to complete the no-hitter, but Santana, only 33 years old that season, didn’t pitch again after that year and many have speculated whether that game had a lot to do with it.

“It really wasn’t on my mind”.

Walker and Wilmer Flores each hit a solo homer off lefty Clayton Richard (0-2) as San Diego began its shift to a six-man rotation during a stretch of 16 games between off days. Matz (9-8) earned just his second win since May 25, when he had earned his seventh straight victory. He fanned All-Star slugger Wil Myers all three times. Matz was coming off of a career-high in pitches in his last start. “If he walked a couple of guys and got up there pretty high, I wasn’t going to visit the Johan Santana scenario again, I can tell you that”.

The daylight slaying of a mosque leader and his associate set off fear and anguish Sunday among Bangladeshi Muslims in a New York City neighborhood, with some saying the killings appear to be an anti-Muslim hate crime. But. It will be Richard’s third outing and first start for the Padres this season. The right-hander yielded one run and three hits in six innings but is still looking for his first major league win since September 17, 2015.

“Fifth inning probably”, Collins said when asked when he started thinking about the no-hitter.

“That felt really good”, Rivera said.

Just called up from the minors, Gabriel Ynoa (1-0) pitched a flawless inning to win his major league debut after Jacob deGrom gave the Mets another dominant start.

Marlins 5, White Sox 4 • Left fielder Christian Yelich threw out pinch-runner Carlos Sanchez trying to score from second base on a two-out single in the ninth inning, and Miami beat visiting Chicago.

A switch-hitter, Walker has connected for seven of his 21 home runs off left-handers this year. The Padres couldn’t get the runner to second, but Matz needed to throw 20 pitches to get a pair of forceouts and a strikeout. The Mets won 5-1. Wheeler has been slow to recover from Tommy John surgery in March 2015.

The Mets (59-58) won consecutive games for the first time since July 6-7.

Such is life for a major league rookie: Big star one night, botched play the next.