Dodgers and Angels want to forget, and remember, this one
It was a no-hitter.
No, it wasn't.
It was a no-kidding.
It was a no-way.
It was a nahhh-hitter.
On a warm, wacky Saturday night at Dodger Stadium, the Freeway Series experienced what could only be called one heck of a SigAlert.
The Angels threw a no-no and went "Uh-oh."
The Dodgers had zero hits and 50,000 cheers.
For only the fifth time since 1900, a team gave up no hits and lost, the Angels falling, 1-0, to the Dodgers despite Jered Weaver and Jose Arredondo combining to give up no hits in eight innings.
The Dodgers did not bat in the ninth inning, thus they did not get 27 plate appearances, thus it is not an official no-hitter.
But a nahhh-hitter, indeed.
"Wow," said the Angels' Chone Figgins afterward, shaking his head, speaking for the thousands who gave a prolonged standing ovation to the odd history. "You come to a game, you never know what you're going to see."
In the end, we saw the Angels' Reggie Willits striking out against Takashi Saito to finish the top of the ninth, and heard the crowd roar with quite possibly the biggest cheer of relief in baseball history.
The Dodgers fielders danced across the field in stunned joy.
The Angels hitters leaned over their dugout railing in pained disbelief.
Then came the most amazing quote of the night, from official scorer Don Hartack.
"The scoreboard totals are correct," Hartack announced in the press box.
Angels, no runs, five hits, two errors.
Dodgers, one run, no hits, two errors.
"This is the craziest," the Angels' Torii Hunter said. "I've never a part of a game that had no hits and they still won."
Mike Scioscia, when asked if he had ever seen anything so crazy, did not go so crazy.
"What, losing a game?" said Scioscia. "It's a strange line score to say the least, but it's a loss."
How nuts was it?
Scioscia, Angels manager, put in a pinch-hitter for Weaver in the seventh inning even though he was throwing a no-hitter at the time.
There was a runner on second and two outs and the Angels were desperate. But Figgins, in his first pinch-hitting appearance of the season, grounded out.
"Yep, kind of weird, what are you going to do?" Weaver said of the night.
He disappeared into the clubhouse almost immediately after being removed from the game. But he returned to the dugout to confirm on the scoreboard that, indeed, he had been part of a no-hit outing, yet was the losing pitcher.
