New bantamweight rivalry, Sean O’Malley star power an ideal fit for Sphere

September 12, 2024

Sean O’Malley and Merab Dvalishvili took dramatically different paths to get to UFC 306 but this bantamweight championship matchup at the Sphere is the fight the division has needed for some time.

TORONTO — Dave Stieb’s no-hitter still stands alone in Toronto Blue Jays history, although Bowden Francis’s second near-miss in the span of four starts suggests that he may yet one day join the franchise great in achieving the difficult feat.

The 28-year-old right-hander, who on Aug. 24 threw eight hitless innings at the Los Angeles Angels before Taylor Ward’s leadoff homer in the ninth, again lost a bid with three outs to go, this time broken up by a Francisco Lindor solo shot in what finished as a 6-2 New York Mets victory Wednesday afternoon.

Francis was up 0-2 in the count when Lindor, an MVP contender in the National League, turned on a 91.9 m.p.h. heater up and away and sent it over the wall in right field, eliciting a loud groan from the Rogers Centre crowd of 29,399.

In that way, the ending was eerily similar to the bid against the Angels, but he was at 117 pitches last time, while this time he was at pitch 111, leaving him better positioned to finish off the outing.

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“I didn’t feel that one coming,” Francis said of the Lindor homer. “I felt like that was maybe going to be a pop-up or something, but with that many pitchers, I felt like I had to empty the tank with heaters and let them put the ball in play, like I was doing all day. It wasn’t one of those days where I was getting a bunch of swing and miss. I needed to attack the zone, not get behind guys, because the more pitches, the less chance I was going to stay out there.”

No worries there as John Schneider said that as long as the no-hitter was in place Francis “was going. He could have been at 120 after eight, he was going. I don’t like to mess with a chance at history.” Once it ended though, so did the outing and the game unravelled once Francis left. Chad Green allowed a Jose Iglesias infield single before walks to Mark Vientos and Brandon Nimmo ahead of a Pete Alonso sacrifice fly put the Mets ahead 2-1, Starling Marte added another sacrifice and Francisco Alvarez tagged Genesis Cabrera for a three-run homer later in the inning.

That made for a dismal ending to an otherwise remarkable day in which Francis once again displayed the ability to confound opposing batters, even with his fastball averaging 90.8 m.p.h., 2.4 m.p.h. off his average, while topping out at just 93.3.

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“I’m just going to learn,” Bowden said of coming so close once again. “I’ve gotten beaten twice with fastballs. Maybe from here on out, when I get this deep, I’ve got to empty the tank on some of the off-speed stuff, or really mix it. But I don’t want to change just because it’s the ninth inning. I’ve got to stick with my plan, but it’s I got to learn that … I don’t know – I can’t keep getting beat in that situation. That’s part of it.”

Stieb’s gem Sept. 2, 1990 at Cleveland remains the only no-hitter in Blue Jays history and came after three agonizing near-misses, losing a perfect game and two other no-nos — in back-to-back outings September 1988 outings, no less — with two out in the ninth.

There have been several other close calls including arguably the most dominant outing in team history Aug. 8, 2010, when Brandon Morrow struck out 17 Rays batters but lost his bid with two out in the ninth on an Evan Longoria infield single.

Hall of Famer Roy Halladay also had his attempt Sept. 27, 1998 broken up with two outs in the ninth on Bobby Higginson’s solo shot for Detroit while June 24, 2007, Dustin McGowan, like Francis, gave up a leadoff hit in the ninth, a Jeff Baker single for Colorado.

Given the calibre of pitchers the Blue Jays have had in their 48 seasons, along with those and other dominant outings, it’s hard to believe no one else has thrown a no-hitter.

“So many things have to go your way, whether it’s a borderline pitch, a play made behind you, how you’re feeling physically — it has to really line up,” said Schneider. “When you think about us historically, it’s really weird that it’s worked out the way it has. And really weird for the same guy within a month. Bowden’s like the perfect guy for it to happen to twice, if that sounds fine to say. I hate that it happened for him, but he’s kind of quirky a little bit. But there’s a ton that goes into it. A lot of things have to line up.”

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A lot of things have certainly lined up for Francis since rejoining the Blue Jays as a starter July 29 following a stint at triple-A Buffalo. In between the two no-hit bids, he also opened an Aug. 29 start with 5.1 no-hit innings at Boston, while on Aug. 12 at Anaheim, the only hit against him in seven innings was a third-inning homer by Mickey Moniak.

“Every pitch makes a difference, like you saw today,” said catcher Brian Serven, who’s formed a strong bond with Francis, the duo working to a 2.64 ERA over 51 innings while holding opposing hitters to a .153 batting average. “Lindor’s a smart hitter, he might have been thinking with us, or whatever it may have been. Every pitch, every out, every game you learn something, whether it’s about yourself, the pitcher, teammates. Hopefully if we get to this point again, we can close it out. It’s just good experience.”

Francis is a different pitcher from the one who began the season in the rotation but quickly found himself bouncing between roles, around a stint on the injured list. Underpinning his surge is the use of a far more effective splitter and a shift in usage from what had been mostly a fastball-curveball repertoire.

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Tying that adjustment into the other elements of his game has produced a greater hole, one increasingly solidifying his place in the Blue Jays’ plans for 2025.

“What I love about him is he’s had a really good stretch and he’s not backing off,” said John Schneider. “He’s not backing off anything he’s doing in-between his starts, he’s not letting his guard down thinking that he’s got things figured out. That’s the biggest thing I love about him. You look back at today, taking a no-hitter into the ninth or even the last game against the Phillies (six innings, three runs) where he had to battle, it’s just really encouraging for him and for us going forward that he can navigate when he doesn’t have his best stuff or when he has to limit damage.”

Against the Mets, when he allowed just a walk and two hit batters with one strikeout before the Lindor home run, he threw 57 fastballs in his 111 pitches despite the dip in velocity, complementing it with his slider (19), splitter (17), curveball (11) and sinker (8).

The mix induced plenty of harmless contact and on the rare occasions someone did square the ball up, his defence was there behind him, with Davis Schneider notably making a leaping catch into the left-field wall on Harrison Bader’s smash to open the sixth, raising hopes that something special was happening.

“Last time (against the Angels), there wasn’t a signature play and when Davis made that catch, that felt kind of like the signature play,” said Serven. “When he caught that, I started to think, ‘OK, it might happen.’”

Francis did, too, on a day that he didn’t feel great physically after a poor night of sleep beforehand, but still found ways to effectively tax his body to not only pitch well, but also once again get within three outs of a no-hitter.

Coming so close once again reinforced to not “let at all the external factors bleed in.”

“Sometimes your mechanics fatigue and stuff starts drifting, flying open. I tried to keep my mechanics in a good spot, keep trusting the mechanics,” he said. “It’s later in the season, so I I feel like my body’s in a good spot remembering what my body needs to do. But days like this where I’m a little more fatigued, you’ve got to keep telling yourself that your stuff is there, it’s not a big deal, keep chipping away.”

That’s precisely what did and it carried him to the verge of a second Blue Jays no-hitter, an achievement proving similarly elusive as Stieb’s first and only.

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New bantamweight rivalry, Sean O’Malley star power an ideal fit for Sphere

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