Baseball: Umpire’s ruling ends Baker’s bid for perfect-o

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Pitching a no-hitter feels great ... except when you were one out away from a perfect game.

Matt Baker, a senior right-hander from Sherman Oaks Center for Enriched Studies, was cruising along in the fifth inning Thursday in the first round of the City Section’s Small School Division playoffs. Baker retired Elizabeth Learning Center’s first 14 batters when his first pitch to the 15th batter got away from him.

Instead of immediately signaling Elizabeth’s batter to first base, the plate umpire called timeout to confer with the other umpires before calling a hit-by-pitch, thus ending Baker’s perfect game. SOCES, ahead 8-0 at the time, scored two runs in the bottom of the fifth inning to end the game by mercy rule.

Jesse Woods, a volunteer coach for SOCES, said it was one of the strangest decisions he has seen: ‘It’s just a shame for Matt because he threw a curve ball behind the batter, who leaned towards the plate to avoid the pitch. It missed him and the catcher stopped it.’

He may not have been perfect, but Baker was more than good enough to send the second-seeded Knights into Tuesday’s semifinals. It was the second no-hitter of the season for Baker, the Valley League’s strikeout leader.

-- Steve Galluzzo