NEW YORK — Two hard hit comebackers in the first inning Wednesday afternoon had
“Kind of Gavin Williams’ coming-out party this year,” catcher Austin Hedges said.
But the party to celebrate the end of the longest active no-hitter drought in the majors will have to wait. The Guardians have not thrown a no-hitter in their last 7,115 games dating back to May 15, 1981, when Len Barker twirled the eighth perfect game of the modern era in a 3-0 win over the Toronto Blue Jays.
Barker watched the game from behind home plate at Cleveland’s Progressive Field, where he was participating in a workout with the Guardians’ corporate partners.
Still, to come so close to joining Barker in the history books was not an outcome Williams could have imagined in the first inning,
“Heck no,” Williams said with a grin. “After that, I thought it was going to go one way. And it was not the way I thought.”
