Dallas Braden’s handful of major league wins grew by one on Sunday. And it was one that will live in the annals of baseball.
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Carlos Avila Gonzalez/San Francisco Chronicle, via Associated Press
Dallas Braden celebrating at the end of his perfect game.
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Braden, the Oakland Athletics left-hander, fired a perfect game against the visiting Tampa Bay Rays in a 4-0 victory. It was the 19th perfect game in major league history and only the 18th victory of Braden’s career.
Braden gained a measure of fame last month when he criticized the Yankees’ Alex Rodriguez for crossing the mound after a foul ball, supposedly a violation of an unwritten rule of baseball etiquette. Rodriguez then dismissed Braden as having only a handful of wins.
Braden hugged his grandmother Peggy Lindsey on the field after the game, a Mother’s Day moment that was especially touching because Lindsey raised Braden after his mother, Jodie Atwood, died of skin cancer when he was a senior in high school. Apparently, Lindsey is just as feisty as her grandson. When she met with reporters after the game, she said, “Stick it, A-Rod!”
Rodriguez had a measured reaction to reporters in Boston, noting that Braden beat the team the Yankees are chasing in the American League East.
“Good for him, he threw a perfect game,” Rodriguez said. “And even better, he beat the Rays.”
Braden did it by striking out six and throwing 109 pitches for his first career complete game. He retired Gabe Kapler on a grounder to shortstop Cliff Pennington for the final out. In Chicago last July, Kapler hit the deep fly ball in the ninth inning that the White Sox’ DeWayne Wise corralled at the wall, saving Mark Buehrle’s perfect game.
At 26, Braden is the youngest pitcher to throw a perfect game since the Angels’ Mike Witt in 1984, when he was 24. The last pitcher with fewer career victories at the time of his perfect game was Charlie Robertson, whose 1922 gem for the White Sox was his second career win.chi hair straightener
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