ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) \u2014 Houston Astros right-hander Tatsuya Imai and relievers Steven Okert and Alimber Santa combined to throw a no-hitter in a 9-0 win over the Texas Rangers on Monday night.<\/p>\n
It was the first no-hitter in the major leagues since Shota Imanaga and two Chicago Cubs relievers combined for a 12-0 win over Pittsburgh on Sept. 4, 2024. No pitcher has tossed a complete-game no-hitter since Blake Snell for the San Francisco Giants against Cincinnati on Aug. 2, 2024.<\/p>\n
Imai went six innings in the 17th regular-season no-hitter in Astros history and fourth that was a combined effort. Houston also threw a no-hitter in the 2022 World Series when four pitchers combined against Philadelphia.<\/p>\n
Okert worked the seventh after Imai got 16 outs over the last 16 batters he faced. He walked three of his first four batters but benefited from a double play in the first inning before settling into a groove.<\/p>\n
Santa made his big league debut in the eighth and retired all six batters he faced. His 24th pitch was a called third strike against Brandon Nimmo that ended it after an ABS challenge by the batter was confirmed a strike.<\/p>\n
The Rangers were held without a hit for the sixth time, the first since Corey Kluber threw a no-hitter against them for the New York Yankees on May 19, 2021.<\/p>\n
Imai’s fourth walk of the night was to Nimmo leading off the fourth inning, but Ezequiel Duran then grounded into a double play.<\/p>\n
Imai threw 57 of his 97 pitches for strikes. He struck out two.<\/p>\n
The 28-year-old Imai is in his first big league season after coming over from Japan. He was 1-2 with an 8.31 ERA in his first five starts for the Astros.<\/p>\n
Imai joined the Astros in January after agreeing to a $54 million, three-year contract. He was a three-time All-Star during eight seasons in Japan, and went 10-5 with a 1.92 ERA last season for the Pacific League\u2019s Seibu Lions, striking out 178 in 163 2\/3 innings.<\/p>\n
Rangers leadoff hitter Joc Pederson was retired on a nifty play in the third when shortstop Jeremy Pe\u00f1a made a backhand stop and a twisting throw to first for the out. Justin Foscue and Danny Jansen had deep flyouts in the Texas fifth.<\/p>\n
Okert walked Nimmo leading off the seventh before retiring the next three batters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) \u2014 Houston Astros right-hander Tatsuya Imai and relievers Steven Okert and Alimber Santa combined to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":308631,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[111532,32775,91568,84825,39233,56,58,57,90584,63983,84002,23681,202,196,85772,42094,942,48645,111533,48568,111529],"class_list":["post-308640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-blake-snell","tag-brandon-nimmo","tag-corey-kluber","tag-danny-jansen","tag-ezequiel-duran","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-jeremy-pena","tag-joc-pederson","tag-justin-foscue","tag-package-100024-ap-online","tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","tag-product-31999-ap-online-baseball-news","tag-product-32562-ap-online-other-sports-news","tag-product-40815-ap-texas-sports-only","tag-shota-imanaga","tag-steven-okert","tag-tatsuya-imai","tag-tatsuya-imai-astros-rangers-nohitter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308640\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/308631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}