Photo pulled from Fox Sports: MLB on Twitter
Exactly what the doctor ordered and more.
For the first time since Don Larson’s Perfect Game in the 1956 World Series, there’s been a No-Hitter thrown in the Fall Classic as the Houston Astros completely closed the door on the Philadelphia Phillies, throwing a combined No-Hitter started by six innings and nine strikeouts from Cristian Javier.
Off the bat, the game trended toward a low-scoring affair as both Javier and Phillies right-handed pitcher Aaron Nola threw four innings of shutout baseball.
However, the game took a turn for the worse for Philadelphia as Houston took off in the fifth.
Three-straight singles from Chas McCormick, Jeremy Peña and José Altuve loaded the bases with no outs for the Astros to begin the fifth. Then, Nola hit Yordan Alvarez to give the first run of the game to the Astros. When it rained for Philly, it poured as the Astros piled on four more runs to take a 5-0 lead. Alex Bregman had the biggest hit of the evening — a double to deep right field to drive in Peña and Altuve.
It would be the only half-inning runs were scored in but that was all Houston needed.
After Javier, Bryan Abreu, Rafael Montero and Ryan Pressly closed the deal on the remarkable nine-inning feat, striking out five batters combined in the process.
Game 4 was also the fourth-straight game in a row in this World Series where the score has been at least 5-0 in a team’s favor.
With the series even at 2-2, Game 5 becomes the most pivotal and important as the winner tomorrow night (8:03 p.m. ET, FOX) will be one win away from the trophy when the series shifts back to Houston on Saturday.
Tomorrow evening’s matchup is scheduled to be Justin Verlander for the Astros and Noah Syndergaard for the Phillies.
