John Means considered himself the recipient of the Orioles’ final Opening Day roster spot in 2019, having contemplated retirement the year before when he was in Double-A for the third straight season. An unexpected debut that September showed him how much work he had to do, and an offseason spent rebuilding himself allowed him to pitch his way into the Orioles’ rotation and, eventually, the All-Star Game.
Never a highly regarded top prospect, he turned himself into Baltimore’s ace.
On Wednesday, the 28-year-old left-hander became something more. In a 6-0 victory over the Seattle Mariners at T-Mobile Park, Means pitched the Orioles’ first solo no-hitter since Jim Palmer shut down the Oakland Athletics in 1969.
“To be in the same breath as Palmer, I don’t think you can do much better than that,” Means said. “I hope it lets everybody, every kid coming up knowing that everybody can do it. I was on my way out in the minor leagues and figured out a way to make a living out of this. Hopefully, kids coming up, even the ones overlooked, know they have a chance.”
Baltimore had not held an opponent hitless since 1991, when Bob Milacki, Mike Flanagan, Mark Williamson and Gregg Olson combined to do so, also against Oakland. It’s the sixth no-hitter in Orioles history and perhaps the franchise’s most dominant pitching performance as Means struck out 12 and consistently induced soft contact.
“I was never that kid who had a ton of confidence in myself being able to get to this point. I never really thought I’d be here,” Means said. “I’d always write ‘MLB player’ as a kid on the sheet when they asked what you were going to do when you were older, but I never thought it was a reality.
“Now that it is and now that I’ve been through all this, I don’t even know how to describe it. I don’t know how to put it into words.”
All that kept Means from Baltimore’s first perfect game and the 24th in MLB history was Sam Haggerty reaching on a third-strike curveball that bounced underneath catcher Pedro Severino with one out in third inning, but Severino erased Haggerty trying to steal second as Means faced the minimum number of batters. He lowered his ERA through seven starts to 1.37, the third-lowest mark in baseball, with an outing that marked the first no-hitter in which the only runner reached base on a dropped third strike. Means is one of only eight pitchers to strike out 12 and walk none in a nine-inning no-hitter, a group that also includes Sandy Koufax, Randy Johnson, Clayton Kershaw and Max Scherzer.
As Means took the mound for the ninth, he looked at his glove and saw his father’s initials. Alan Means began his shifts at a Kansas City-area trucking company at midnight so he could take a young Means to baseball practice in the afternoons. Alan died last year of pancreatic cancer, and as Means thought of his father, it relieved some of the building pressure.
“I said to myself, ‘He wouldn’t care. He’s just glad that I’m having a good time,’” Means said. “The accolades and all that never mattered to him. But it was pretty special, and I know he would be proud.”
Alan and Means’ mother, Jill, had driven to Cleveland in 2019 to see Means at the All-Star Game. He made it there with a 2.50 first-half ERA and later finished second in American League Rookie of the Year voting.
He was supposed to be Baltimore’s Opening Day starter in the coronavirus-delayed 2020 season, but a bout of arm soreness delayed the debut of his increased velocity. But that spike did not come with results. Amid spending time away from the team after Alan’s death, Means had an 8.10 ERA through six starts.
Orioles manager Brandon Hyde told him he wasn’t seeing the same pitcher he had in 2019, that he thought Means was pitching angrily. In his final four starts, Means allowed four runs, all on solo home runs, across 23 ⅔ innings. With Wednesday’s no-hitter, he has allowed one run or fewer in nine of his past 11 starts.
“You don’t want to label somebody [an ace], honestly,” Hyde said. “I don’t want to raise expectations of who he is, but he is definitely pitching like one. There’s no doubt about that.
“You go to the ballpark, Meansy’s on the mound, it’s going to be a fun night.”