There is no sport on earth that finds more creative ways to break your heart than baseball. JT Ginn learned that the hard way, taking a no-hit bid into the 9th inning and walking off the field on the wrong end of a walkoff homer before he could even settle into the frame. The kicker? His own offense had just handed him the lead, with Lawrence Butler coming through to flip the scoreboard and put Ginn 3 outs away from immortality.
Butler's swing put Ginn in position to chase history in the bottom half.
Everything was lined up. New lead, no hits allowed, the kind of dugout silence where nobody talks to the pitcher because they all know what's on the line. And then it took 6 pitches. Six. That's the entire window between Ginn being a name everyone learns tomorrow and Ginn being the guy who got walked off in the worst possible spot.
The full swing of fortune in a single 9th-inning clip.
Jared Carrabis nailed the vibe better than anyone. There's no other sport where you can be one half-inning away from a career-defining moment and then leave the mound watching the other team mob each other at home plate. Football lets you punt. Basketball lets you foul. Baseball just hands you the ball and says good luck.
Carrabis called the sport cruel and devastating, and it's hard to argue.
Ginn is going to be fine. He's a big leaguer with the stuff to put himself in this spot in the first place, and pitchers who flirt with no-hitters generally aren't the type to spiral over one outing. But this one is going to live on the highlight reels and the lowlight reels for a while. The closer you get to a no-hitter, the harder the floor hits when it falls out from under you. And no floor falls harder than a walkoff bomb.