I'm extremely surprised...  I honestly don't think Lester is that good... Sure, he's a great story, and I think he'll have a decent career as a 3rd starter, but did the Royals send their AA team out by accident?

That was Lester's 14th career win, which means he's already got more career victories than the following guys who threw no-hitters: Anibal Sanchez (12-4), Mike Warren (9-13), Bud Smith (7-8), and Bobo Holloman (3-7).

There will be no mocking of Lester's performance. Eight of the nine Royals were legit big leaguers. This is not Eric Milton's "no-hitter" against Glaus and eight empty uniforms.

The AP story mentions Varitek has caught four no-hitters. I didn't see the list in the article, but I could come up with two of the three other pitchers. Can anyone name all three without looking them up?

Lowe, Buchholz, uh... uh...Nomo?

For the Brewers to go to Fenway and win is and would be hopeless with no counterparty to David Ortiz.  It's a freak of scheduling they won't be doing again in the foreseeable future, like the Blue Jays playing the Rays in Orlando. Having said that, this appears to be a fine pitcher, in league with Rick Ankiel or Josh Hamilton for career resurrection (glancing at the poll to my left).

I agree. David Ortiz deserves a counterparty.

As for career resurrection, I'm still waiting for Rickey Henderson to come back.

I know that everybody does this and nobody really cares, but...

Since I dropped Jon Lester from my fantasy team:

5 GS, 34 IP, 1.57 ERA, 26 K

Never fails...

Since I dropped Jon Lester from my fantasy team...

Well, will you please pick him up?

I am not surprised.  Lester's a fine pitcher, but it takes some work to throw a no-no in Fenway even against the Royals. Nice story.

There is a fifth pitcher whom Varitek has caught for a complete game, no-hit shutout in the majors.

Has me wondering what are some of the best NH% in history for catchers?

That is, the percentage of no-hit games caught over total games caught.

I don't know why anyone should be surprised by this - statistically, Lester and McGowan are very similar pitchers, except that Lester is younger and will almost certainly have the better career (being left-handed it is almost guaranteed to last longer and Lester has two years of age on him). Sure the two are quite different stuff-wise, but each equally effective with their stuff.

In fact, that's an interesting question - I wonder who'll turn out to be the better pitcher 3 years down the road. My heart says McG, but I'm not sure whether to listen to it.

I did not know about Masanori Murakami until I happened on his BBRef page.  When I first started watching baseball a couple of years after Murakami's time in MLB, there was plenty of talk about Sadarahu Oh, but no mention that I can recall of Murakami. Strange.

An interesting note I hit when checking some stats...
The Jays are now hitting better in high leverage situations than in any other situation according to Baseball-Reference.

High Leverage: 261-335-412 over 441 PA's
Medium: 248-328-356 over 720 PA's
Low: 256-331-347 over 617 PA's

Yet with RISP they are still ugly: 223-312-314

Go figure.

Meanwhile for pure frustration...
OPS For #1-3 slots all below 700, OPS for #9 is at 708, best OPS is at the #6 slot at 802

Guess who has make the #6 slot work?  Shannon Stewart at 364-417-455 (24 PA). 
#2 is the worst in large part thanks to?  Shannon Stewart at 231-326-282 (46 PA).

Sigh.  Stuff like that must drive Gibbons up the wall.

I'm not surprised since this game is still fresh in my memory.  But performances like this against the Jays and Royals should really get some sort of an asterisk, right?

I think what Varitek's record is evidence of is that no team prepares their pitching/catching batteries to face individual batters on the competition better than the Red Sox.  They aren't good just from the raw talent and the drafting.  Their organization does so much right in development, instruction, scouting, and preparing at the major league level.  Combine their smarts with their market and resources and it's no wonder they have such a standout record over the last 5 years or so.

It will be a bit of a challenge for them post-Ortiz and Ramirez but for now there seems to be no slowing them down.

But performances like this against the Jays and Royals should really get some sort of an asterisk, right?

As poor as the Royals' and Jays' offenses are, they are still batting .259 and .254, respectively. The AL average is .259. So while these two teams may well present an opposition pitcher's best chances to yield relatively few runs, they are not necessarily inclined to be no-hit any more frequently than any other team.

Since no one is guessing, the fifth pitcher to throw a complete game no hit shutout to Tek is none other than Devern Hansack.

Because of a change in the rules in 1991 when Major League Baseball changed the definition of a no-hitter to require that a pitcher throw at least nine full innings and a complete game, Hansack does not get the credit for an official no-hitter; however he does get credit for both a complete game and a shutout. Hansack faced fifteen batters, walking only Fernando Tatis, who was then retired in a double play. ** from wikipedia

Short of adding a Bonds-esque bat to this lineup really soon, I don't know how anyone in the Toronto organization can say with a straight face that the Jays are a playoff contender this season. Any kind of semi-decent pitcher on the mound means the Jays are scoring 3 or less runs, and the starters have to be darn near perfect every start or get tacked with a loss. I know it's been said a lot, but this is just painful to watch. More so because I just spent 82 games watching the Canucks suck at scoring goals. Why can't any team I cheer for produce offense this year?