Víctor Caratini rubs his shoulders with the cream of the Puerto Rican catchers from the major leagues

Coamese catcher Víctor Caratini joined on Friday night the exclusive list of eight court catchers who participated in a non-match match at Major League Baseball. but his most recent achievement places him in a much more closed club among Puerto Ricans and as the first catcher in the entire history of adults to hold a unique event..

Caratini, who received the entire game from the right last night and no hit Joe Musgrove, he became only the second catcher in Puerto Rico, with two games of this type, equaling the Iván “Pudge” Rodríguez Hall of Fame.

And while the highest credit in a no-hit game naturally goes to the pitcher, as a catcher Caratini scored other important milestones on Friday.

He is the first starting catcher in Major League Baseball (MLB) history to hit back-to-back without hitters for various teams, according to Elias Sports Bureau. There were another 10 cases in which a starting receiver did not receive any shots in a row, but in all of them they were for the same teams.

The last no-strike recorded in the major leagues before Friday was on September 13, 2020, when Caratini himself received Alec Mills in a Chicago Cubs uniform.

You don’t have a full season yet

Caratini, who made her adult debut in 2017, is only 27 years old. And in the last four seasons with the Cubs, he has never had a full season, always acting as a backup for Venezuela’s Wilson Contreras.

In his most important season, 2019, he played 95 games, but started behind the board in just 59 years.

Therefore, the feat of receiving two consecutive “no-hitters” becomes more relevant due to the fact that he always shared the catch, which means that, on many fewer occasions, he achieved what other catchers have achieved in many other games in back “home”.

Between the shortened season of 2020 (due to the pandemic) and until now, Caratini started as a receiver in a match line only 26 times. But more precisely, Between his first game without a game on September 13 and this Friday, he started as a starting catcher in only 11 games (six with the Cubs and five with the Padres).

Mills, the author of last year’s “No-hitter”, hit five in nine innings and went three. And, while handcuffing Milwaukee’s offense, Chicago attacked for 10 strokes, winning the game 12-0 over the Brewers. In that game, Caratini also contributed to the offense, hitting 4-2 with a double, two runs and three RBIs.

Meanwhile, on Friday, Musgrove got its second victory of the season by throwing the complete game, eliminating 10 and not going. The only runner to hit him, Joey Gallo, was because the right hit him with a pitch in the fourth half.

In his first start of the season, also with Caratini behind the plate, Musgrove threw six complete innings without giving a score and allowed only three shots. He adds 15 innings without allowing a run for a perfect 0.00 ERA with 18 hits.

For his part, Caratini, in addition to receiving pitches from Musgrove, hit 3-1 in a much less offensive game that ended with San Diego’s 3-0 victory over the Texas Rangers.

Padresul is now playing a 5-3 record. Caratini hits .313 with a homer and seven RBI. in just five games.

The eight receivers in Puerto Rico

Eight Puerto Rican receivers received at least one “n-hitter” a total of 10 times, according to information compiled by sports historian Jossie Alvarado. Hall of Famer, Iván Rodríguez (1994, 2007) and Caratini (2020, 2021) are the only ones to have done it twice. The other six were Eliseo Rodríguez (1975), Javier López (1994), Jorge Posada (1998), Geovany Soto (2008), Ramón Castro (2009) and Martín Maldonado (2019).

Of these, Eliseo was the first to do so in 1975 as a drummer with today’s Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan, who is also the pitcher with the most players in history (7).

The only time two Puerto Rican receivers received an unparalleled game in the same year was in the 1994 season. Lopez did it first with Kent Mercker on April 8, and Ivan followed on July 28 with a Kenny Rogers gem. , which was also the fourteenth perfect game in major league history. Iván, Jorge Posada and Ramón Castro are the only receivers in Puerto Rico to receive a perfect.

On the other hand, there have been four jugs of Puerto Rican or Puerto Rican origin, without a hitter so far. The first was John Candelaria, who got it in the Pirates of Pittsburgh uniform in 1976. The second who made it and developed on the island was Juanchi Nieves, who played for the Milwaukee Brewers in 1987. Jonathan Sánchez followed in 2009 with the San Francisco Giants, while Jake Arrieta did the same with the Chicago Cubs in 2015.

For Padres, Friday’s no-hitter was the first in franchise history.