Astros 3, Dodgers 0: Friday Night Fiersworks

What Happened

There are not enough words to describe what an incredible outing Mike Fiers had tonight, but I'm going to try.  Even though he was well over his career high pitch count, A.J. Hinch let Fiers stay out there in the last two innings.  He repaid that by throwing the first Astros no-hitter in Minute Maid Park history.  His final pitching line on the night was nine innings, zero hits, zero runs and three walks on 134 pitches.  He had his curve working tonight, and ended up striking out ten batters, including five in a row at one point.

The last player to reach base for the Dodgers tonight was Joc Pederson taking a walk to lead off the third inning.  After that Fiers sat down 21 batters in a row.  The crowd was so into it, and he seemed to feed off of that by getting more animated with each passing inning.  He was so dominant that the only real threat to the no-no was a warning track fly ball to right center that Jake Marisnick tracked down for the first out in the ninth inning.

Take that, Chris Archer, with your weak sauce one hitter.

At the plate the Astros had a much better night than the previous one.  With back-to-back hits by Jose Altuve and Carlos Gomez in the first inning they immediately doubled their hit total from Thursday night.  Marisnick started the scoring in the second inning, when he crushed a home run to deep left center to drive in Chris Carter for a 2-0 lead.  In the sixth inning Evan Gattis mashed home run number 18 into the Crawford Boxes to add an insurance run.  They didn't need anything else as Fiers handled his business on the other end.

I know it can't top tonight (or can it), but tomorrow these two teams will play again with a premier pitching matchup.  Scott Kazmir will face off against Zack Greinke at 6 pm.

Fun Facts

This was the first complete game no-hitter since Darryl Kile in 1993, and first by the team since the combined effort at Yankee Stadium in 2003.

In the last two Astros games the losing teams have totaled one hit.  I know that probably means nothing, but it has to be at least in second place for lowest number of combined hits for the losing team in back to back games...right?

Not only was that Fiers first no-hitter, but his first complete game.

Tweets of the Night

Hey he was a professional hitter, not a professional analogy talking guy...

Don Mattingly: "The fact that you get no-hit, it’s like icing on the bad part of the cake."

— Pedro Moura (@pedromoura) August 22, 2015

From one beard to another...

Fiers beard may not be as nice, but it don't have to be for a no hitter. #ClubAstros is gonna be awesome tonight

— Keuchel's Beard (@KeuchelDBeard) August 22, 2015

View from the stands...

@big_john819 @ItsG_REG pic.twitter.com/P53pccJQI4

— Josh Ramos (@whiteboi_FWM) August 22, 2015

And a little dig from the rival...

You know what they say: $300mm payroll can't buy a hit.

— San Francisco Giants (@SFGiantsFans) August 22, 2015