Free | 23/6
Posted: 6/2/2012
NEW YORK -- For more than 50 years, the New York Mets chased that elusive no-hitter. Johan Santana finally finished the job.Santana pitched the first no-hitter in team history, helped by an umpire's missed call and an outstanding catch in left field in an 8-0 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals on Friday night.After a string of close calls over the last five decades, Santana went all the way in the Mets' 8,020th game.'Finally, the first one,' he said. 'That is the greatest feeling ever.'He needed a couple of key assists to pull it off.Carlos Beltran, back at Citi Field for the first time since the Mets traded him last July, hit a line drive over third base in the sixth inning that hit the foul line and should have been called fair. But third base umpire Adrian Johnson ruled it foul and the no-hitter was intact even though a replay clearly showed a mark where the ball landed on the chalk line.'I saw the ball hitting outside the line, just foul,' Johnson told a pool reporter.The umpire acknowledged that he saw the replay afterward but declined to comment.'It was in front of his face, and he called it foul. I thought it was a fair ball,' Beltran said. 'At the end of the day, one hit wasn't going to make a difference in the ballgame. We needed to score more runs and we didn't do that.'Hometown kid Mike Baxter then made a tremendous catch in left field to rob Yadier Molina of extra bases in the seventh. Baxter crashed into the wall, injured his shoulder and left the game.Making his 11th start since missing last season following shoulder surgery, Santana (3-2) threw a career-high 134 pitches in his second consecutive shutout. Relying on a sneaky fastball and the baffling changeup that's always been his signature, he struck out eight and walked five with wind gusting up to 30 mph.'Amazing,' Santana said after tossing the majors' third no-hitter this year. 'Coming into this sea