Víctor Caratini plays the crème de la crème of Puerto Rican catchers in the Major Leagues

Coamese catcher Víctor Caratini joined the exclusive list of backyard catchers on Friday-evening who participated in a no-hitter in Major League Baseball. but his most recent performance puts him in a much more closed club among Puerto Ricans, and as the first catcher in all of the majors’ history to achieve a unique event.

Caratini, who hosted the entire game from last night’s right-handed and no-hitter Joe Musgrove, he became only the second Puerto Rican catcher with two games of this type, equal to Hall of Famer Iván “Pudge” Rodríguez.

And while the biggest honor in a no-hitter goes to the pitcher of course, Caratini as catcher marked other important milestones on Friday.

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, he is the first novice catcher in Major League Baseball (MLB) history to hit back-to-back no-hitters for different teams. There have been 10 other instances where a starting receiver has received no-hitters in a row, but in all cases they were for the same teams.

The last no-hitter recorded in the major leagues, before Friday, was on September 13, 2020, when Caratini herself received Alec Mills in a Chicago Cubs uniform.

You don’t have a full season yet

Caratini, who debuted in the majors in 2017, is only 27 years old. And in the previous four seasons with the Cubs, he never had a full season, always backing up Wilson Contreras from Venezuela.

In his most competitive season, 2019, he played 95 games, but started behind the plate in just 59.

So the feat of receiving two consecutive ‘no-hitters’ becomes more relevant due to the fact that he has always shared the catch, meaning that on far fewer occasions he has achieved what other catchers have achieved in far more games behind ‘home’ . .

Between the shortened 2020 season (due to the pandemic) and so far, Caratini has only started as a receiver in a match lineup 26 times. But to be more precise, Between his first no-hitter on September 13 and next Friday, he only started as a starting catcher in 11 games (six with the Cubs and five with the Padres).

Mills, the author of last years no-hitter, struckout five batters in nine innings and walked three. And while Milwaukee’s attack was handcuffed, Chicago attacked for 10 hits and won the game 12-0 vs. the Brewers. In that game, Caratini also contributed greatly to the attack, hitting 4-2 with a double, two runs scored and three RBI’s.

Meanwhile, on Friday, Musgrove scored his second win of the season by throwing out the entire game, striking out 10 and not running. All that ran back to get to him, Joey Gallo, was as the righthanded man hit him with a pitch in the fourth inning.

In his first start of the season, also with Caratini behind the plate, Musgrove threw six full innings without giving up a score and gave up only three basehits. He added 15 innings without giving up a run for a perfect 0.00 ERA with 18 strikeouts.

For his side, in addition to receiving pitches from Musgrove, Caratini went 3-1 in a much less offensive game that ended with San Diego’s 3-0 shutout victory over the Texas Rangers.

The Padres now play a 5-3 record. Caratini hits .313 with one homer and seven RBI’s. in just five games.

The eight Puerto Rican recipients

According to information from sports historian Jossie Alvarado, eight Puerto Rican recipients have received at least one no-hitter a total of ten times. The Hall of Famer, Iván Rodríguez (1994, 2007) and Caratini (2020, 2021) are the only ones to have made it twice. The other six were Eliseo Rodríguez (1975), Javier López (1994), Jorge Posada (1998), Geovany Soto (2008), Ramón Castro (2009) and Martín Maldonado (2019).

Eliseo was the first to do so in 1975 as a drummer with the current Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan, who is the pitcher with the most no-hitters in history (7).

The only time two Puerto Rican receivers got a no-hitter in the same year was in the 1994 season. Lopez first did it with Kent Mercker on April 8, and Ivan followed on July 28 with a Kenny Rogers gem, which also the fourteenth perfect game in Major League history. Iván, Jorge Posada and Ramón Castro are the only Puerto Rican recipients to receive a perfect one.

On the other hand, there were four pitchers of Puerto Rican or Puerto Rican descent with a no-hitter so far. The first was John Candelaria, who made it in the uniform of the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1976. The second to achieve this and first developed on the island was Juanchi Nieves, who pitched for the Milwaukee Brewers in 1987. Jonathan Sánchez followed him in 2009 with the San Francisco Giants, while Jake Arrieta did the same with the Chicago Cubs in 2015.

For the Padres, Friday’s no-hitter was the first in franchise history.