The Cleveland Guardians completed a three-game sweep of the New York Mets with a 4-1 victory on Wednesday at CitiField. Pitching undeniably played a huge part in Cleveland's success in that contest — more specifically, the arm of starter Gavin Williams, who came so close to making franchise history with his stellar performance on the mound.
Williams had a no-hitter going into the ninth inning, but the dream of ending Cleveland's no-hitter drought came to an end when Mets star Juan Soto took him deep for a solo 420-foot home run that put New York on the board. The 26-year-old Williams stayed on the hill to record one more out before issuing a free pass to Brandon Nimmo. Guardians manager Stephen Vogt then decided it was the right time to pull Williams from the mound, with Hunter Gaddis finishing the rest of the contest.
Williams was already over 100 pitches when Soto faced him in the ninth inning, but Vogt was not going to deny his pitcher of taking a shot at history that was just a few outs away.
“With the four-run lead like that, you’ve got to let him go,” Vogt said, per the Associated Press (h/t Fox Sports). “You don’t know how many chances a pitcher’s ever going to have to do it. So he was going to get to go the whole way.”
Williams could taste history until Soto spoiled his chances of pulling off the first Cleveland no-hitter since Len Barker had a perfect game against the Toronto Blue Jays on May 15, 1981.
“At one point I didn’t even care about the pitch count,” said Williams, who didn't throw more than 109 pitches in a single game before in the big leagues.
Despite losing the no-hit bid, Williams further highlighted his brilliance of late with a sterling showing versus the Mets. Over his last five starts, Williams has gone 2-0 with just seven earned runs on 18 hits (four home runs) for just a 1.93 ERA and a 0.98 WHIP across 32.2 total innings of work.
The Guardians, who are 1.5 games back of the last wild-card spot in the American League, have an off-day this Thursday before starting a three-game series on Friday against the Chicago White Sox at Rate Field in Chicago.
