On a quiet August Sunday afternoon, in front of a more-than-half-empty stadium, throwing for one unremarkable team against another, Drew Rasmussen nearly achieved history.
Unless you're a Tampa Bay Rays fan, or a really devoted Milwaukee Brewers fan, you probably have no idea who Drew Rasmussen is. Drafted in 2018, he made his major-league debut in 2020 for Milwaukee and got dealt to Tampa Bay early last season. He threw well enough to earn a spot in the Rays' rotation, but never even reaching the eighth inning of a start prior to Sunday. And then he nearly pulled off something that no MLB pitcher — not Max Scherzer, not Justin Verlander, not Shohei Ohtani or Clayton Kershaw, nobody — has done in 10 years.