Brewers Were This One Missed Call Away From History In Shutout Win

Armando Galarraga should've had a perfect game for the Tigers in 2010. CC Sabathia should've had a no-hitter against the Pirates in 2008. And the Brewers should've had a combined no-hitter against the Reds on July 15th, 2023.

It goes in the books as a one-hit shutout, one that was historic in its own right, but not as historic as it could've been. Saturday's game gave Milwaukee three straight shutout wins against the Reds. This is the first time in MLB history a team has shutout an opponent in three straight games while striking out at least 12 batters in each.

That's a great bit of history for the Brewers to own. No team in MLB history has ever done what the Brewers pitching staff has just done. But more history was there if it wasn't for a crucial missed call.

The Brewers missed out on the third no-hitter in franchise history because of a missed strike three call in the 4th inning.

Freddy Peralta was dominant on Saturday night against a Reds offense that has gone cold. He hadn't allowed a hit through three innings and had one out in the 4th. Jake Fraley stepped to the plate and Peralta had a 2-2 count on him. He dropped in a beauty of a curveball on the 7th pitch of the at-bat and the umpire gave up on it too early and called it a ball.

It was clearly in the strike zone. The home plate umpire, Brian O'Nora, flinched. He hesitated. He thought about calling it a strikeout, almost did, but decided against it.

The very next pitch, Jake Fraley gets a broken bat infield single to third base for Cincinnati's first and only hit of the entire ballgame.

Peralta didn't let any other damage happen, and neither did Elvis Peguero, Joel Payamps, or Devin Williams. Not a single hit the rest of the way.

Perhaps if the Reds hadn't gotten that hit in the fourth inning, they would've approached the later at-bats differently or the Brewers pitchers would approach them differently. We'll never truly know if that one call was changed if a no-hitter still would've happened. But as it stands, they shouldn't have gotten that base hit and they didn't get another hit the rest of the game, so the Brewers appear robbed of a no-hitter yet again.

This isn't like the CC Sabathia situation in Pittsburgh where the official scorer erroneously called a base hit instead of an error. This was the umpire's call, and there's no challenge that can be made to it. Not yet, anyway. MLB is experimenting with a challenge system in the minor leagues where teams can challenge balls and strikes a couple times a game. While it won't be in MLB this year or next, it could be soon.

Whenever that challenge system arrives, it'll be too late to get the Brewers their no-hitter they could've gotten on Saturday night against the Reds.