Baseball is a cruel game.  A truly spectacularly and wonderful game, but cruel.

On Wednesday night, it reminded us – once again – just how cruel it can be.

On a night when 37-year-old Dodgers left-hander Rich Hill was perfect, his teammates were not … almost, but not.

It’s not that Hill’s teammates didn’t try, it’s that they didn’t come through when they absolutely positively needed to in order to have their 6′-5″ / 220-pound lefty’s name etched in baseball immortality along with the other 23 major leaguers who have thrown a perfect game in baseball’s 148-year history.

Hill was one error and one pitch away from a perfect game on Wednesday night. (Photo credit – Keith Srakocic)

But for a top-of-the-ninth-inning fielding error by Dodgers substitute third baseman Logan Forsythe that everyday third baseman Justin Turner, who was given a well-deserved night off by Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, could have made with his eyes closed, Rich Hill was denied his place in baseball immortality for tossing baseball’s 24th perfect game.

To be fair, even if Forsythe hadn’t booted the routine grounder off the bat of Pittsburgh Pirates shortstop Jordy Mercer to lead off the bottom of the ninth, it was the rest of the Dodgers who truly let Hill down by going 0-for-9 at the plate with runners in scoring position and stranding 11 runners on base through their own nine innings of regulation play. That being said, Forsythe was among four Dodgers – including Rich Hill himself – to leave runners in scoring position with two outs. The other two were left fielder Curtis Granderson and shortstop Corey Seager, who did so twice.

Additionally, in the first two innings alone, Messrs. Granderson, center fielder Chris Taylor and veteran Dodgers second baseman Chase Utley sent Pirates outfielders to the warning track on fly balls that narrowly missed leaving the yard.

But baseball is a cruel game.

Having thrown only 95 pitches through his nine innings of work, Roberts let Hill go back out to pitch the 10th inning of his no-hitter. As Dodger fans vividly recall, Roberts had pulled the Boston, Massachusetts native in the seventh inning of a perfect game on September 10, 2016 against the Miami Marlins due to a developing (and reoccurring) blister on Hill’s left middle finger. This time there was no blister problem and on eight previous occasions this season the veteran left-hander had made 95 or more pitches in a game, two of which were over 100 pitches.

But on his 99th pitch on Wednesday night, Pirates second baseman Josh Harrison did what Rich Hill’s teammates could not do, he hit Hill’s 88.2-MPH four-seam fastball on a 2-1 count over the wall in left field to give the Pirates the 1-0 walk-off win and deny Hill what would have been the 297th no-hitter in baseball history.

For a painful three or four seconds, Dodger fans were uncertain if left fielder Curtis Granderson had made a no-hitter / game-saving spectacular catch. He did not. (Photo credit – Justin K. Aller)

Anyone who has ever had the pleasure to speak with Hill knows that he is as honest as the day is long. And although he possesses an wonderful sense of humor and is extremely well loved by his teammates, he is as brutally honest as anyone on the planet, perhaps to a fault. As such, it came as a surprise to no one that Hill took full responsibility, not for losing his own no-hitter, but for losing the game itself.

“It falls on me in this one. One bad pitch. It ran back over. Tip my hat,” Hill said. “Late in the game like that, you have to make better pitches.”

In spite of his brutal honesty, untruer words have never been spoken. The painful loss had zero affect on the NL West standings, in which the Dodgers still maintain a 21-game lead over the second place Arizona Diamondbacks and a 21.5-game lead over the third place Colorado Rockies.

But was it simply bad luck that denied the 13-year major league veteran his little corner in Cooperstown? Not according to Rich Hill.

“If I say, ‘That’s baseball,’ it’s a cliché but that’s the way it is. That’s the way the game is,” Hill said. “We have something bigger than any individual here that’s going on. I think that’s something we all realize. We’re in it for the delayed gratification, not the instant gratification.

“I don’t really think of luck. I think it’s just tomorrow you put in the work and you keep moving forward. Sometimes luck is disguised as that,” Hill added.

Truth be told, there wasn’t a player in the Dodgers clubhouse after the painful loss who didn’t feel horrible (and responsible) for their offensive ineptitude; this from the best offensive team in all of baseball this season.

“He deserved it,” Dodgers catcher Austin Barnes said. “He threw a helluva game. It hurts. It doesn’t feel that great not being able to scratch one in for Rich. It hurts.”

Seager, who went 3-for-5 on the night and extended his current hitting streak to 12 games but couldn’t muster a  hit when the Dodgers needed it most, expressed similar feelings after the game.

“Yeah, that sucks,” said Seager. “We left 11 on base. I don’t really have a word for that. It just sucks that we couldn’t do that for him.”

Baseball is a cruel game.