TORONTO – CJ Abrams knew the situation when he stepped to the plate with one out in the top of the sixth. The gigantic scoreboard in center field at Rogers Centre can’t be ignored altogether, and the zero in the Nationals’ hit column was right there in plain sight.
Abrams knew Bowden Francis was no-hitting the Nats to that point. He also knew it would do no good to let that fact creep too deep into his mind.
“I don’t want to think about that at the plate,” he said. “I just want to get a good pitch to hit.”
Abrams did get a good pitch to hit, a 1-1 changeup from Francis that stayed up and over the plate enough to ripe for the taking. And when he proceeded to launch that pitch over the right field wall, Francis’ no-hit bid was over in style.
“The at-bats before, I kind of swung at his pitch,” Abrams said. “I was a little early on the ones I swung at. So I wanted to go to left field, and I got a changeup and I got to pull it.”