Garza no-hits Tigers, Rays win series opener, 5-0

MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL

Thanks to Matt Garza, the Tampa Bay Rays finally ended up on the right side of a no-hitter.

Garza held Detroit without a hit and Matt Joyce broke up the Tigers’ Max Scherzer’s own no-hit bid with a sixth-inning grand slam as Tampa Bay won 5-0 in St. Petersburg, Fla., Monday night.

The no-hitter is the first in franchise history for the Rays (60-38), who have been no-hit twice themselves this year.

Garza’s effort is the fifth no-hitter in 2010. Colorado’s Ubaldo Jimenez no-hit Atlanta April 17, Oakland’s Dallas Braden threw a perfect game against the Rays May 9, Roy Halladay of Philadelphia was perfect against Florida May 29 and Arizona’s Edwin Jackson dominated his old team, the Rays, June 26. The Tigers’ Armando Galarraga lost a perfect game against Cleveland with two outs in the ninth inning on a blown call June 2.

Remarkably, Garza’s no-no came against a team he had never beaten. He was 0-4 with a 5.85 ERA in six starts against Detroit coming in.

Garza (11-5) struck out six batters and allowed just one baserunner – he walked Brennan Boesch in the second inning. He only had one near-miss all night, giving up a third-inning drive to right to Danny Worth, but right fielder Ben Zobrist leaped to make the catch.

He didn’t need a whole lot of offense to win, but the Rays helped him out with a big sixth inning. Scherzer got the first out of the inning, but Zobrist drew a walk, Carl Crawford reached on catcher’s interference on Gerald Laird and Evan Longoria walked to set the stage for Joyce, who laced a pitch halfway up the right-field foul pole for a four-run cushion.

Crawford added a little more insurance with an eighth-inning homer to dead center, and Garza induced a groundout from Don Kelly, struck out Laird looking and got pinch hitter Ramon Santiago on a flyout to Zobrist to end it.

Joyce spoiled a dominant start by Scherzer (7-8), who allowed two hits through 5 2-3 innings, with four walks and eight strikeouts.

Detroit (51-47) manager Jim Leyland wasn’t around to see the show. He was ejected in the third inning after arguing when second-base umpire Marty Foster called the Rays’ B.J. Upton safe stealing second, though replays showed Tigers second baseman Will Rhymes tagged him out.

The Tigers have lost 10 of their last 13 games and are 16-30 on the road this season, having lost seven straight.

Tampa Bay has won seven of its last eight at home after dropping 12 of 19 at Tropicana Field.

NOTES: The Padres and the Mets are now the only major-league teams who have never thrown no-hitters. … This was the first game of an 11-game homestand for the Rays. … Garza has won his last four home decisions. … Detroit was without Brandon Inge, Magglio Ordonez and Carlos Guillen, all on the 15-day DL. … With Longoria’s 0-for-3 night, he is hitless in his last 13 at-bats. … Leyland was also ejected by Fieldin Culbreth of the same umpiring crew at Atlanta June 27. … Tampa Bay remains three games back of the Yankees in second in the AL East. The third-place Tigers are three games behind the first-place White Sox in the Central. ... The Rays’ James Shields and Detroit’s Justin Verlander have the unenviable task of following Garza’s effort. They’ll pitch the second game of the four-game set Tuesday night.

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Photo above: Tampa Bay's Matt Garza pitches during his no-hitter Monday. (Mike Carlson/AP)

Video credit – ESPN