The Houston Astros' No-Hitter is As Much An Achievement for Vázquez as Javier

History doesn't shine on catchers, but Christian Vázquez was the only member of the Houston Astros to be a part of every pitcher of their Game 4 no-hitter.

Author:
Ben Silver
Publish date:
Nov 3, 2022 3:31 PM EDT

In this story:

Houston Astros

Following the footsteps of Jason Varitek was never going to be easy. The Boston Red Sox had a stalwart at catcher for 14 seasons, from 1998 through 2011, then he retired.

The Red Sox pieced together a few seasons with Jarrod Saltalamacchia behind the dish before homegrown Christian Vázquez broke onto the scene.

Renowned through much of the minors for his defense, Vázquez was never supposed to be the heir to Varitek, no one could. Especially not when Varitek held the all-time record for most no-hitters caught with four.

A no-hitter is as much luck as skill, more so for a catcher. The starting pitcher needs to be elite, they need pinpoint command and they need to be on the same page as their catcher, all while the defense needs to cover for any hard hits balls.

On Wednesday night, the Houston Astros did just that, and they did it with only a modicum of luck.

The Philadelphia Phillies' xBA was .081. If that truly means there's only an 8.1% chance of each individual at-bat ending in a hit, then the Astros had only a 10.2% chance of throwing a no-hitter with that kind of batted ball luck.

But that start also carried the third lowest xBA of any game pitched in 2022, only the Arizona Diamondbacks (.026 xBA) on Jun. 6 and Chicago Cubs (.077 xBA) on Jun. 17 were worse offensively.

Put this way, if what was nearly the second-best pitching performance in an entire season only carried 10.2% chance of being a no-hitter, imagine how lucky one must be to ever see a team no-hit.

Vázquez caught 681 games in his career and 14 in the postseason. Mathematically, the chances of him catching a no-hitter are infinitesimally slim. Now, imagine how Varitek ever caught four in his career.

Acquired at the deadline, Vázquez had to learn an entirely new pitching staff. Not only did he have to learn what pitches these players threw, but also what pitches they liked, what made them comfortable and what their idiosyncrasies were.

Vázquez talked about that challenge after World Series Game 5, "When I'm not playing, talking to everybody, knowing all the pitchers, call bullpens when they're not playing. I think that's the way of getting to know everybody."

The ability to quickly learn the ins and outs of a pitching staff is an impressive feat in such a short time. It's one thing to form a bond with one pitcher, but Vázquez didn't just catch one pitcher in the no-hitter, he caught four.

Christian Javier, Bryan Abreu, Rafael Montero and Ryan Pressly will all have their names written down in the history books, but in smaller print, or omitted all together will be Vázquez.

History doesn't shine on catchers the way it shines on pitches. But unlike any of the Astros' hurlers, Vázquez was a part of every pitch in World Series Game 4.