There’s always a slight stench of “What if?” when a manager pulls a starting pitcher in the middle of a no-hitter.
It’s there even if the relief crew finishes off the combined no-no, as Jason Foley and Alex Lange did for Matt Manning on July 8 in the Detroit Tigers’ ninth no-hitter as a franchise and MLB’s 20th combined no-no ever.
(That’s fewer than MLB’s perfect game total; if you’re curious, we ranked all 20 no-nos here.)
Yes, the pitching change was justified, considering Manning’s injury history, the 2-0 score and the tying run coming to the plate with two outs in the seventh inning; as manager A.