Nothing Special About This No-Hitter

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

Yet, he 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 [after it was over] 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 boxscore.”

Boskie went four innings, striking out six, Julio Valera followed with two hitless innings, and Todd Frohwirth, Ken Edenfield and Mark Eichhorn each added hitless innings.

The only Giant baserunner was Shawon Dunston, who struck out on Boskie’s ball in the dirt in the third inning but reached when the pitch bounced past catcher Jorge Fabregas. The game ended with Eichhorn striking out Marvin Benard with the record crowd of 10,635 on its feet.

“That was kind of neat,” Eichhorn said. “It’s not every day you get to be involved in a no-hitter.”

But outside of that 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,” Fabregas said. “It was like they had 10 hits or something.”

Backup catcher Ron Tingley, who caught the last three innings, proudly displayed the game ball to a group of reporters. He plans to give it to his nephew.

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

The right-hander has 12 strikeouts in his last eight innings, a statistic he attributes to a sweeping curveball he added during the off-season.

“I’m changing speeds on the curve and that has given me an edge,” said Boskie, a nonroster invitee to camp. “I’ve never changed speeds well--I’ve just gone inside and outside--but this gets hitters off my fastball.”

Manager Marcel Lachemann wouldn’t say Boskie had won a spot in the rotation. “But you can’t get much closer,” Lachemann 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. Tingley hit a two-run homer in the eighth, and reserve third baseman George Arias preserved the no-hitter when he made a back-handed grab of Kirt Manwaring’s sixth-inning grounder and threw him out at first. . . . Steve Ontiveros threw for another 15 minutes off a mound Saturday and reported no problems. Lachemann said Ontiveros probably will throw batting practice early this week and should pitch in his first spring-training game late in the week.