Cavalli is no one-hit wonder
In completely dismantling the Cubs on Thursday, Cade Cavalli authored his second one-hitter of the season and earned comparisons to Max Scherzer
It took three innings for the thought to start creeping into everyone’s mind.
Cade Cavalli had faced nine Cubs and had retired all nine, four via strikeout. He needed only 29 pitches to get there, and each looked sharper than the last. Baseball people typically don’t take a no-hit bid seriously until at least five innings have been completed. But on Thursday afternoon, everyone in the Nationals dugout was already thinking about it at the end of the third.
“I was like, man, if he keeps this up, we’re going to have a decision to make late in the game here,” manager Blake Butera said.
Cavalli was admittedly thinking about it, too, but for a very specific reason. Two days earlier, he noticed Jake Irvin was about to throw his personal notes about the Cubs in the trash following a less-than-stellar performance. He asked his rotation mate if he could have them, just to take a look himself. Irvin obliged, and then Cavalli jokingly told him: “If I throw a no-hitter, I’m going to need these from you every time.”
Now here was Cavalli, three perfect innings in the books against that very same Chicago lineup, making eye contact with Irvin in the dugout. No words were spoken between the two. None were necessary in that moment.
“I was just smiling at him,” Cavalli said, “because we knew what was going on.”
