Johan Santana Just Threw The First No-Hitter In New York Mets History

After more than 8000 games, the Mets finally have thrown a no-hitter:

Johan Santana, showing some of the flash that made him baseball's best pitcher in the 2004-2008 era, went the distance against the Cardinals, who lead the league in batting average by a country mile, and are therefore the toughest team to throw a no-no against.

The Cardinals are hitting .281. Excluding the Rockies for obvious reasons, the next best team batting average in the NL is the Braves' mere .257.

The Rockies have one of the worst offenses in baseball. I might have written THE worst, but there's always those pesky Pirates. That fact is disguised by the fact that they put up slo-pitch softball stats at home. Their team batting average is .288 at home, .229 on the road. They have scored only 3.7 runs per game in road games, but 6.5 at home!!!

The anti-Rockies are the poor Seattle Mariners, who are hitting .193 at home (last in the majors), scoring only 73 runs in 22 games. They have scored about twice as many runs (145) on the road, second only to the mighty Rangers!

And then there's the aforementioned Pirates, who are last in the majors in runs scored on the road and second-last in runs scored at home (only one run away from last). Thank God they don't play in Seattle or San Diego, where they might never score a run for the home fans.

Anyway, that was a long sidetrack in a comment that is supposed to praise and congratulate Santana, but the point was that he tossed his no-no against a squad which is, by far, the toughest team in the league to hold hitless. For a brief period at least, it was Santana Time again.