El Perfecto

Yesterday it was Mother's Day, so naturally I was watching baseball, NOT. I missed this 19th perfect game tossed by an unlikely hero, Oakland A's starter Dallas Braden. Unless you are an A's fan, or a Rays fan, this Sunday afternoon tilt was a 4 pm ( EST ) game that just ran into the normal course of mother pampering, and gets missed.

Heck I did not even consider recording this game, even though I have James Shields ( Braden's mound opponent ) in 2 fantasy leagues. I wonder if prior to the Red Sox/Yankee game, Alez Rodriguez had it on in the clubhouse. Maybe, since his pinstripers are a scant 1/2 game behind the Tampa Rays. If so , I can imagine the chiding the Yanks were giving him.

Recently, this unlikely duo are engaged in a jar fest over Arod's apparent dissing of Braden after he had the nerve to run over the mound after a ground out that ended an inning. I don't get that etiquette at all, but never having played the game at that level, there appears to be many idiosyncrasies.

So meanwhile back on the left coast, Braden played soft toss in preparation for his start against the East Division leaders from Tampa. Tampa is not the 27' Yanks, but they are not the 69' Padres either. Longoria, Pena, Bartlett, Crawford, some pretty decent hitters in their line up.

Braden normally is not a hard thrower, it would take something for him to crank it up and keep it in the low 90's consistantly, he relies on super good control, a neat collection of ground ball outs, and what is this year a wonderful change up. Today the fastball was good, the chahnge and curve were fantastic, and the Rays were swinging and not making much contact. Oh there were some great defensive plays made, Pennington made a few of them, as did Kouzmanoff, but largely it was Braden keeping the hitters off balance. Which is the art of pitching really.

So he became the 2nd A's picther to acieve the El Perfecto, last performed on May 8th, 1968 bu James Hunter, better known as The Catfish. Almost 42 years to the day ! Braden's on May 9th, Hunter's on May 8th. Coincidence, no I think not, but pitchers aroung the majors ( for the most part ) are still having good success.

Catfish tossed his against the 68' Twins, against such memorable Twinkies as Cesar Tovar, Rod carew, Harmon Killebrew, and Tony Oliva, so there were some batting title winners in their line up. No cheapies these guys.

In the line -up for the A's were Campy, Reggie, Bando, Rick Monday and Joe Rudi, but guess who was the hitting hero ?

No, not Reggie Jackson, and no not Sal Bando, it was Catfish going 3 for 4, with 2 doubles and 3 ribbies. Take that Braden !

Blog follower Brad informs that lately the perfectos are beibng hurled by lefties ( Buerhle, Randy Johnson, Dave Wells, Kenny Rogers, and Tom Browning ) represent 6 of the last 8, but I think that is mostly coincidence.

The first recorded perfect game was by this guy named Cy Young, the guy, not the award. Only once in post season, Don Larsen for the Yankees.

While I am a fan of offense, I wish I had watched this game, as Dallas Braden is now part of an elite group of 19, the El Perfecto Club.