HOUSTON — Spencer Arrighetti knew he had a chance to accomplish something special when the Houston Astros right-hander threw his very first pitch against the Texas Rangers on Friday night.
The curveball to Joc Pederson missed wide of the strike zone, but Arrighetti’s confidence in his best pitch soared.
“I was like, dang, that felt pretty good,” Arrighetti said. “Spinning good. I looked up and saw the shape, and I was like, oh, that’s better than it’s been, so I had a pretty good feeling about it.”
Arrighetti generated a swinging strike to get ahead 1-2 on Pederson before freezing him with a curveball that nicked the outside corner.
The 26-year-old took a no-hitter into the eighth inning of the Astros' 2-0 victory. The no-hit bid ended when Rangers rookie Justin Foscue hit a line-drive single to left field.
Arrighetti was pulled after Foscue’s base hit. He walked four while throwing 102 pitches — one shy of his career high — and 62 for strikes. The native of nearby Katy, Texas, received a rousing ovation from the announced crowd of 32,555 at Daikin Park.
“It was a strike and I needed it to be a strike because I was getting tired, and honestly, I thought it was a pretty good slider,” Arrighetti said of his final pitch. “It could’ve been better. He broke his bat on it. In another world, maybe it goes right at somebody.”
Foscue grounded out in each of his first two at-bats and entered the game batting .182 this season in 11 plate appearances.
Arrighetti (5-1) lowered his ERA to 1.50 in six starts after beginning the season with Triple-A Sugar Land. The longest start of his career was on Aug. 28, 2024, when he struck out 11 over 7 2/3 scoreless innings against the Philadelphia Phillies.
The Astros went ahead 1-0 on Isaac Paredes’ third-inning solo homer, and Braden Shewmake added an eighth-inning RBI single.
Left-hander Bryan King replaced Arrighetti and kept the Rangers off the board in the eighth by getting Pederson to fly out to right field, and then Astros catcher Christian Walker picked off Foscue at first base. King retired the side in order in the ninth for his fourth save.
Astros left fielder Zach Dezenzo kept the no-hit bid alive when he made a diving catch on a line drive by Alejandro Osuna for the second out of the fifth inning.
“Dezenzo makes that catch, I’m like, there’s always one play when you look back at (no-hit) bids,” Arrighetti said.
First baseman Christian Walker took a tough hop on a ground ball off the bat of Brandon Nimmo to start an inning-ending double play in the sixth.
There have been 17 no-hitters in Astros history, with the last coming from Ronel Blanco on April 1, 2024.
The Rangers have been no-hit five times since moving to Texas in 1971, most recently by Corey Kluber of the New York Yankees on May 19, 2021.
Arrighetti, whose wife gave birth to twin boys last month, said Friday’s performance meant more than normal because his grandparents, who live in Albuquerque, New Mexico, attended the game.
“I don’t really get to see them very often,” Arrighetti said. “I got a little emotional. I can’t hide it.”
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