Game 115 - LORENZEN THROWS NO-HITTER!

Phillies 7, Nationals 0
Game 115 - Wednesday Night, August 9th in Philadelphia
Record - 63-52, 2nd Place, 10 1/2 games behind the Braves

One Sentence Summary:  On an absolutely unforgettable night of baseball, Michael Lorenzen pitched a no-hitter against the Nationals in his home Phillies debut.

What It Means:  Lorenzen threw the 14th no-hitter in Phillies history, the first Phillies no-hitter at Citizens Bank Park since Roy Halladay did in Game 1 of the NLDS on October 6, 2010, and the third Phillies no-hitter overall in the ballpark's history.  Kevin Millwood threw the first no-hitter at the ballpark back on April 27, 2003, a game I attended with my Dad.

What Happened:  Amazingly enough, the no-hitter wasn't the only storyline.  The Phillies took an early 3-0 lead following Bryce Harper's RBI double in the first and Nick Castellanos' 199th career home run a batter later.  Weston Wilson was making his big league debut following seven seasons in the minor leagues, starting in left field.  In the second inning, Wilson connected for a long home run off Nationals' starter MacKenzie Gore in a fairly emotional moment.  We thought that would easily be the game highlight, but we were wrong.  Wilson ended the night with his home run, a pair of walks, a stolen base and three runs scored.

In the third, Castellanos launched his second home run, and the 200th of his career, to make it 5-0, Phillies.  A few more runs would score while the ballpark crowd, 30,406 of us, began to realize the Nationals had a big zero under the H on the scoreboard.  Lorenzen went to work, efficiently getting through the seventh and eighth, and then emerging to a loud standing ovation in the top of the ninth.  Lane Thomas grounded out, Joey Meneses struck out looking and Dominic Smith lofted a fly ball to rookie center fielder Johan Rojas, who easily tracked and caught it for the final out of the game.  What an incredible night!

Featured Cards:  It was going to be Wilson, without a doubt, until Lorenzen made history.  I decided to create Highlight cards for both.

Field Report:  By happenstance and pure luck, my wife Jenna and I were there.  We had had tickets for an early season game that had been delayed for several hours by rain.  The Phillies offered all fans with tickets to that game two free tickets to an upcoming game as a goodwill gesture and I randomly picked this early August contest against the Nationals.  Up until a day ago, I was supposed to be on a Wednesday night flight for an impromptu work trip.  With too many conflicts to make the work trip feasible, I canceled that flight and left it up to Jenna if she wanted to go to the Wednesday night Phillies game instead.  We already knew we wouldn't actually be sitting in our seats in Section 419, and we'd likely leave after five or six innings.  Jenna said she wouldn't mind going, so we went.

We leisurely spent the first four-plus innings watching the game on overhead TVs inside Pass and Stow, cheering with the waning bar crowd after Wilson hit his first big league home run and following both of Castellanos' home runs.  Somewhere around the fifth inning, we made our way over to the Yuengling Beer Garden in Section 107, where we had planned to watch an inning or two more before heading home.  Looking at the scoreboard in the sixth inning, I told Jenna we weren't going anywhere just yet.  We counted down the remaining outs needed, with Jenna capturing the video above of the final out.

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2023 Chachi #51 Weston Wilson / 2023 Chachi #54 Trea Turner HL