DENVER — Zac Gallen retired the first nine batters he faced to extend his scoreless innings streak to 44⅓ innings on Sunday but the streak was later broken in the Arizona Diamondbacks‘ 12-6 win over the Colorado Rockies.
Orel Hershiser holds the record with 59 scoreless innings, set in 1988 with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Gallen (12-2) struck out 11 in six innings to win for the seventh time in his last eight starts. He passed Brandon Webb with a scoreless first inning to set the club record at 42⅓ innings; Webb’s mark came in 2007.
“He’s been super encouraging. I probably wouldn’t have taken as well as he did, encouraging somebody to break my record,” Gallen said of Webb. “It’s just awesome to be able to just be mentioned in the same conversations as a legend of the franchise.”
Gallen retired the next six batters but three straight singles by Colorado to open the fourth, the last an RBI single by C.J. Cron, ended his streak. It was the first run he allowed since Aug. 2 at Cleveland, a day before his 27th birthday.
“I’m surprised no one caught on to that,” Gallen said. “For it to last that long I guess you could say 27 started off on a good year.”
Elehuris Montero had a two-run double later in the fourth inning.
“The run he’s been on, the hitters that he get through and the lineups he can get through, it’s been an unbelievable 44 innings — or whatever it got to,” manager Torey Lovullo said. “It speaks volumes about how efficient he’s been and how good he’s been.”
Gallen was an inning shy of passing Sal Maglie for sixth in the live ball era (since 1920) among longest scoreless streaks.
“The franchise record was the one that I was most really concerned about,” Gallen said. “Orel and 59 is a whole other stratosphere for me. I’m glad it’s over in the sense that it’s a relief. I don’t have to worry about trying to be so perfect out there. But at the same time, you may never get a shot again [at] Orel’s record. Ultimately, it was a good run.”
Arizona scored four in the third and five in the seventh to back Gallen’s day. Jake McCarthy had four hits and three RBI for the Diamondbacks.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Source: www.espn.com