Nothing Special About This No-Hitter

Shawn Boskie pitched the first four innings of a combined no-hitter against the San Francisco Giants, taking a huge step toward securing a spot in the Angel rotation. He also had an RBI single in the fifth inning, one of 18 Angel hits in a 15-0 victory in Scottsdale Stadium.

Yet he still described his day as “kind of a bummer.”

Huh?

“Well, I’ve never been involved in a no-hitter, but you couldn’t really go out and jump on guys because it was a spring-training game,” Boskie said. “And it’s not big enough where I’d get a game ball signed by everyone . . . but I will save the box score.”

After Boskie struck out six, Julio Valera followed with two hitless innings, and Todd Frohwirth, Ken Edenfield and Mark Eichhorn each added a hitless inning.

Outside of Eichhorn’s last pitch, there was hardly a hint the Angels were doing anything special. There was little talk of a no-hitter on the bench. There was no sense of anticipation among fans in the later innings.

“There was no excitement at all,” catcher Jorge Fabregas said. “It was like they had 10 hits or something.”

Boskie, who went 7-7 with a 5.64 earned-run average for the Angels in 1995, has thrown eight consecutive hitless innings and has not yielded a run in 11 Cactus League innings.

Manager Marcel Lachemann wouldn’t say Boskie had won a spot in the rotation, “but you can’t get much closer,” he said. “He was excellent today. That’s as good as I’ve seen him as far as locating pitches.”

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Center fielder Jim Edmonds had a double, triple, home run and five RBIs, and shortstop Gary DiSarcina had four hits, four RBIs and four runs to pace the Angels (14-3-1) over the Giants. Steve Ontiveros threw for 15 minutes off a mound Saturday and reported no problems.