Washington Nationals pitcher Cade Cavalli's no-hit bid ends after 6 2/3 innings against Cubs

WASHINGTON (AP) — Cade Cavalli approached Washington Nationals teammate Jake Irvin with a first-time request Tuesday night: Cavalli wanted Irvin's notes for getting ready to face the Chicago Cubs.

Even then, Cavalli offered a caveat.

“I told him, ‘If I throw a no-hitter, I’m going to need these from you every time,’” Cavalli said Thursday after a 7-0 victory. “He walked down there at one point and I was just smiling at him because he knew what was going on.”

Between Irvin's crib sheet and his own potent stuff, Cavalli pitched 6 2/3 no-hit innings before Michael Busch blooped an opposite-field single for the Cubs' lone hit.

Cavalli, who retired the first 15 Cubs before Dansby Swanson walked to lead off the sixth, struck out 10 in a career-high eight innings. Clayton Beeter finished the combined one-hitter with a perfect ninth.

Max Scherzer was the most recent Nationals pitcher to throw a no-hitter, doing so on Oct. 3, 2015, against the New York Mets. The Nationals have two other no-hitters since moving to Washington. Jordan Zimmermann threw one on the last day of the 2014 regular season against Miami, and Scherzer did it against Pittsburgh in 2015.

There has been only one no-hitter in the majors this season, a combined effort by Houston’s Tatsuya Imai, Steven Okert and Alimber Santa against Texas on May 25.

Blake Snell was the last to throw a solo no-hitter, doing so Aug. 2, 2024, against Cincinnati while pitching for San Francisco.

It seemed as though Cavalli could end that drought. He needed only 29 pitches to breeze through three innings, and was at 54 pitches through five.

“I wasn’t really thinking about the no-hitter in the third, but I was looking at the pitch count as he’s going into the fourth inning and I was like, this is complete-game type of pitching the way he was going and how quickly he was getting some outs,” first-year Washington manager Blake Butera said.

Cavalli (10-5) said some of his strategy stemmed from Chicago's patient approach. The Cubs entered the day with the most walks in the majors and the second-most runs behind Washington, so there was merit to the right-hander's plan to compete over the plate.

His biggest hiccup came after the Nationals scored five runs in the fifth to take a 6-0 lead. Swanson drew a four-pitch walk to foil the perfect game and Michael Conforto then got ahead 3-0. But Cavalli induced a double-play grounder to erase Swanson.

“I just wanted to see him work out of it, and that’s a big part of him taking the next step as well,” Butera said. “Things are going well and then he sits down for what felt like two hours in between innings.”

Butera said his policy is to allow a pitcher to take a no-hitter as far as he can until he says he can't go anymore. It didn't come to that with Cavalli, who turns 28 on Friday.

Despite falling behind 1-2 in the count, Busch poked a looping single that landed in front of left fielder Daylen Lile. Cavalli got Alex Bregman to fly out, then returned in the eighth and stranded Swanson (who walked again) when Conforto was called out on strikes on Cavalli's 103rd pitch.

“In the moment, it stinks,” Cavalli said. “But you just have to get right to the next pitch. I feel like that’s just something that’s been a motto in my life. Make the next best decision. No matter what happens, there’s a reaction to every action. I know my defense gave it everything they had. If they could have caught that, if they could have dove, they would have done it. It fell in the right spot.”

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