Kris Bubic’s no-hit bid derailed by Mother Nature as Kansas City Royals beat Chicago Cubs
On the one hand, caution probably dictated the umpires stop the game with lightning in the area, ominous clouds and foreboding forecast.
On the other, it sure looked a lot like circumstances conspired against Kris Bubic’s potential no-hitter.
The Kansas City Royals left-handed starting pitcher, Bubic handcuffed and frustrated hitters for six innings with seemingly nothing able to rattle him. Then Mother Nature took her crack at knocking Bubic off course.
Bubic tried to stay loose through a 34-minute weather delay due to lightning and minimal light rain, but he lost the no-hit bid two batters into the resumption. While Bubic’s outstanding outing came to a frustrating halt, the Royals carried on and picked up a 4-2 series-clinching win over the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field on Saturday afternoon.
Bubic seemed to take the delay and failed no-hit bid in stride after the game.
“A situation like that is never ideal, but at the end of the sixth inning I saw the grounds crew in the dugout and they alerted us of lightning on the scoreboard,” Bubic said. “It is what it is. I’m not going to sit here and make excuses.”
Even though the video board at the stadium directed fans to take shelter prior to the delay, the timing of the stoppage and the lack of significant rainfall left a sour taste in the mouths of some in Royals uniforms.
“The obvious is that’s just a shame that he wasn’t able to keep rolling right there,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said. “I’ve never seen anything like that. It’s an embarrassment, I think, to the game to have something as special going on as what we were witnessing right there.
“You pull us off that field, that rain better hit us or something better happen worse than what happened! I feel for the kid. Not too many people in a lifetime have an opportunity to take a run like he just did. I hope there’s some sort of follow-up because that just can’t happen like that.”
The Royals (54-68) have now won five of six games, and they can sweep the series on Sunday.
Nicky Lopez, a native of nearby Naperville, Illinois, and Whit Merrifield (3 for 5, two runs, stolen base) had three hits apiece in the win, and Andrew Benintendi went 2 for 4 with a double. Michael A. Taylor and Lopez also swatted doubles.
Lopez and Merrifield also executed a double steal with Merrifield executing a steal of home.
Bubic (4-6) gave up just one hit after the delay. However, that hit followed a leadoff walk and it went into the stands for a two-run home run.
He finished his outing having allowed two runs on one hit and two walks in 6 1/3 innings. He struck out a career-high nine.
“Bubic was lights-out today,” Lopez said. “But to see it end like that was kind of a hard pill to swallow. … It was definitely a tough pill to swallow just to see a guy who battled his butt off the whole game and then have to wait and sit around and then come out and then that happened.”
In the middle of the seventh inning when the grounds crew rolled the tarp onto the field and halted the game before Bubic had a chance to take the mound for the bottom half of the inning.
“Apparently there is some rule that they’ve had in place here, but that rule needs to be changed,” Matheny said. “I’m just going to be honest. I’d love to see what would’ve happened if they had a no-hitter and we get some sort of lightning in some distant future spot. … It is what it is, but it needs to be fixed because it’s wrong.”
Bubic, who turned 24 on Thursday, retired 18 of 19 batters to start the game before the storm interrupted the game. He issued his lone walk to former Royal Frank Schwindel, the second batter he faced in the first inning.
Bubic sat down 16 consecutive batters after the walk and up to the delay. During a stretch between the end of the second and start of the fifth, he struck out seven of eight. He’d set a new career-high with nine strikeouts by the end of the sixth.
Royals catcher Cam Gallagher wasn’t slated to start, but when the Royals scratched starting catcher Salvador Perez from the lineup, Gallagher stepped in to guide Bubic from behind the plate.
“(I had) a really good rhythm with Cam today,” Bubic said. “We didn’t shake off once, and we just kept rolling through. Anything he was putting down, I was throwing. We didn’t think too much about it. We had a good plan going in, and I was able to execute for the most part.”
Bubic credited Benintendi for tracking down a ball headed towards the gap in the second inning to keep Jason Heyward from a potential extra-base hit.
During the delay Bubic went down to the bullpen, not having a timetable for the delay, and he threw the equivalent of two simulated innings worth of pitches just to stay loose. He didn’t want to go more than 10-15 minutes at a time without throwing.
Following the 34-minute delay, Bubic walked Schwindel for a second time. Having shown fairly dominant command for most of the outing, he issued that walk on five pitches and then gave up a two-run home run to Patrick Wisdom on a changeup left out over the outer half of the plate and thigh high.
The Royals had staked Bubic to a 4-0 lead by the time of the delay.
“He needs to go re-watch that,” Matheny said of Bubic’s performance. “It was probably one of the best three-pitch mix starts I’ve ever watched as far as how efficient, how effective he was. How he established both sides of the plate. He didn’t go straight to one thing at any one time.”
This story was originally published August 21, 2021 at 5:14 PM.
