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| - Baltimore pitcher John Means threw the third no-hitter of this Major League Baseball season on Wednesday, striking out 12 in the Orioles' 6-0 win over the Mariners in Seattle. The left-hander, who had never pitched a complete game before, came agonizingly close to a rare perfect game. But one Mariners runner reached base in the third inning when Sam Haggerty struck out but advanced when catcher Pedro Severino couldn't corral the wild pitch. However, Severino then caught Haggerty trying to steal second base, and Means ended up facing the minimum 27 batters. "I can't put it into words right now," the 28-year-old Means said in an on-field television interview. "It's unbelievable." Means said missing out on a perfect game didn't matter. "It's not a big deal," he said. "I'm just happy that I got through it. Honestly, I'm happy I got a complete game. I've been stuck in the seventh inning. That was the farthest I've gone so far, to be able to go the eighth and ninth, I was happy with that. But to get a no-hitter, I could care less that it wasn't a perfect game." Severino, however, was harder on himself. "He should be throwing a perfect game today if I blocked that, if I get that breaking ball between my legs," he said. "I feel just really, very bad. But after, we still threw a no-hitter. We celebrated. John Means is a really good pitcher." The last Orioles pitcher to throw a solo no-hitter was Hall of Famer Jim Palmer, against the Oakland Athletics on August 13, 1969. Four Orioles pitchers combined for a no-hitter against the A's on July 13, 1991. Means threw 113 pitches and his 79 strikes included 26 first-pitch strikes out of a possible 27. Seattle's best chance at a hit was spoiled when Orioles center fielder Cedric Mullins made a sliding catch of J.P. Crawford's soft line drive to center to end the sixth inning. "I felt OK all game," Means said. "I didn't really have the changeup til the end, and I'm glad I got it going." Instead, he said, his fastball inside was his "biggest pitch." "I have to be able to do that to get the changeup away working," he said. "Sevi called a great game, unbelievable. I wouldn't have done it without him." Overall it was the 10th no-hitter in club history -- six since the franchise moved to Baltimore and four when they were the St. Louis Browns. Already this season Joe Musgrove had tossed the first no-hitter in San Diego's 53-year franchise history, and Carlos Rodon threw the 20th no-hitter in White Sox history. Musgrove struck out 10 in the Padres' 3-0 win over the Texas Rangers on April 9, finally ending the club's spell as the only MLB team never to have recorded a no-hitter. In addition, four-time all-star Madison Bumgarner of the Arizona Diamondbacks no-hit the Atlanta Braves in a 7-0 victory in the second game of a double-header last week. But since that contest was scheduled for seven innings rather than nine it didn't go into the books as an official no-hitter. bb/gph
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