Angels no-hit Mariners on night team honors memory of Tyler Skaggs

Tom Gatto

Angels no-hit Mariners on night team honors memory of Tyler Skaggs image

The Angels have been playing on emotion in the days since Tyler Skaggs' July 1 death. Friday night, they turned in an inspired, historic performance.

Los Angeles produced the 11th no-hitter in franchise history, blanking the Mariners 13-0 at Angel Stadium. Taylor Cole and Felix Pena combined to throw it; Cole opened the game and worked the first two innings before Pena finished it out with seven hitless frames. Pena allowed the only Mariners baserunner, a walk to Omar Narvaez in the fifth inning. 

"Definitely the most special thing that's ever happened to me on a baseball field," Cole told Fox Sports West's Alex Curry in an on-field postgame interview.

MORE:  Nationals' Patrick Corbin honors friend Tyler Skaggs

The last Angels no-hitter before Friday's gem was Jered Weaver's solo no-no in 2012.

Cole, Pena and every other uniformed member of the Angels wore Skaggs' name and his No. 45 on Friday as part of the team's memorial for the left-hander, who died July 1 in Texas. Before the game, Skaggs' mother, Debbie, threw a strike to Andrew Heaney for the ceremonial first pitch. Heaney, who considered Skaggs his best friend, embraced Debbie Skaggs between the mound and home plate after the pitch.

After that, the Angels went out and took immediate control of the game. After Cole delivered a hitless first frame, the offense put up seven runs in the bottom of the inning. Mike Trout opened the scoring with a 454-foot (45, forward and backward) two-run home run. Trout finished the game with three hits and six RBIs.

Once Cole was done, Pena did the rest. The 29-year-old right-hander has been the primary "bulk" reliever as the Angels have implemented the opener. He breezed through the ninth inning, capping the night by inducing Mallex Smith to ground out to second baseman Luis Rengifo.

After the final out was made, and after the team celebrated its accomplishment, the players placed their Skaggs jerseys on the mound in one final display.

"We know for sure he was looking down on us. He's up there smiling," Trout, fighting back tears, told MLB Network's Kelly Nash after the game. "We're going to keep playing for him the rest of the season, the rest of my career. I can't ask for a better friend."

"It's been a tough week . . . we just support each other. Now we have an angel taking care of us in heaven," Pena told Curry through an interpreter.

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Skaggs would have turned 28 Saturday, a fact that was not lost on Trout as he reviewed the game. 

One other 7/13 oddity:

That no-no was thrown by the Orioles' Bob Milacki, Mike Flanagan, Mark Williamson and Gregg Olson against the A's in Oakland. That is the last time the A's have been no-hit.

Mariners second baseman Dee Gordon was playing for the Marlins in 2016 when teammate Jose Fernandez was killed in a boating accident. Gordon hit his only home run that season to lead off the bottom of the first in Miami's first game after Fernandez's death. He is convinced there was divine intervention that night and again on Friday.

Other MLB players quickly reacted on social media to express how much the performance had moved them. Here are some of those reactions:

Tom Gatto

Tom Gatto Photo

Tom Gatto joined The Sporting News as a senior editor in 2000 after 12 years at The Herald-News in Passaic, N.J., where he served in a variety of roles including sports editor, and a brief spell at APBNews.com in New York, where he worked as a syndication editor. He is a 1986 graduate of the University of South Carolina.