The New York Yankees flirted with history once again last night as this time it was with Jameson Taillon. The Yankees were facing the Angels of Los Angeles in the Bronx for the second game of a day-night doubleheader, the Yankees were looking for the sweep of the three game series. The first two games in the series was like batting practice for the Yankees with four home runs alone in the first game of the doubleheader, overall the first two games featured blowout wins and dominant pitching for the Yankees. This third game though was a prime example of different for the Yankees lineup, three up and three down was a regular last night as they were being shutout by the Angels. The Angels were being shutout too, in fact they were also being no hit, they did not even have a single runner on the base, Yankees big right-hander Jameson Taillon was throwing a perfect game. Taillon entered the Thursday night game with a 5-1, 2.49 ERA stat line through 50.2 innings on the mound, overall sitting 42-31 with a 3.72 ERA through 120 MLB stats on his career line.
Jameson Taillon is a fighter, having two Tommy John surgeries along with a battle with cancer and undergoing an operation leading him to rehab in this most recent offseason. Taillon’s biggest key that wet Thursday night was that he did not throw a lot of pitches per at-bat along with shutting down the powerful duo of MVP candidates Mike Trout and Shohei Othani. Taillon went into the 8th inning after setting down the first three batters in the Angels lineup, it was now to the middle of the order with the 30-year old just six straight outs away from history. Up to this point there have been just 23 perfect games in MLB history, two of those coming before 1900 and with the most recent one coming in 2012 when Felix Hernandez went perfect against Tampa Bay on August 15th, 2012 for the Seattle Mariners.
Jameson Taillon was now facing Jared Walsh who was leading off the eighth inning for LA. Walsh hit the ball back up the middle to the diving Isiah Kiner-Falefa who was shifted to the right side, chasing the ball, IKF hurried to get to it with a backhand grab, but the ball would bounce off the mitt into the outfield with Jared Walsh getting into second base with a double. That was the first hit and first base runner that LA had in the game, Taillon is now just pitching a shutout. Jameson Taillon would allow another hit as Walsh scored, making it a 1-0 game in LA’s favor in the top of the eighth. The Yankees would end up coming back to win later on in the bottom of the inning with a 2 run rally, Jameson Taillon would pick up the win with Clay Holmes getting the save.
Jameson Taillon had a total of 7 innings of perfect baseball, bringing history into the 8th. The entire Yankees starting rotation has been near perfect this season, being led by Nestor Cortes who has an immaculate inning next to his name along with flirting with two no-hitters this season.
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