Getting no-hit is starting to become an annual tradition for the Toronto Blue Jays.
Last year, the Detroit Tigers threw a combined no-hitter against the Blue Jays in early July. This year, it came in the team’s fifth game of the season.
Ronel Blanco of the Houston Astros was nearly perfect in a 10-0 win over Toronto on Monday. In just the eighth start of his Major League career, the 30-year-old completely shut down Toronto’s lineup over nine innings with seven strikeouts. The only blemishes were walks to former Astro George Springer in the first and ninth innings.
In the 8th start of his career, Ronel Blanco has thrown a no-hitter! pic.twitter.com/lHxENPJ0x3
— MLB (@MLB) April 2, 2024
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How many times have the Toronto Blue Jays been no-hit?
Blanco’s gem on Monday was the eighth time a pitcher has thrown a no-hitter against the Blue Jays in the team’s history.
The first time the Blue Jays were no-hit came in the team’s early days as an expansion team. In May of 1981, Len Barker of the Cleveland Indians threw the tenth perfect game in Major League history, striking out 11 Blue Jays in a 3-0 win.
The Blue Jays were involved in three no-hitters in under one year in the early 1990s. Dave Stewart of the Oakland A’s threw a no-hitter against the Blue Jays in a 5-0 win in June of 1990. Later that season, Dave Stieb threw the first and only no-hitter in Blue Jays history in a 3-0 win over Cleveland. Early in the 1991 season, Nolan Ryan tossed the seventh and final no-hitter of his Hall of Fame career against Toronto.
After those three, the Blue Jays weren’t involved in a no-hitter until Justin Verlander threw the second no-no of his career in May of 2011. Verlander threw another no-hitter against the Blue Jays in September of 2019, which came just one season after James Paxton became the first Canadian to pitch a no-hitter on Canadian soil in a 5-0 Seattle Mariners win over Toronto in May of 2018.
The seventh and eighth are the ones that have come over the past two seasons. Matt Manning, Jason Foley, and Alex Lange of the Detroit Tigers no-hit the Blue Jays in July of 2023 and Ronel Blanco did so on April 1, 2024 in a 10-0 win for the Astros.
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