PAWTUCKET — While Bronson Arroyo was warming up in the Pawtucket Red Sox bullpen before Sunday's game, he was a little concerned because of some stiffness in his right elbow.
It wasn't anything major, but he had bumped it before the game and was hoping that it wouldn't bother him during his 23rd start of the season.
Quite the contrary, though, the elbow was of no concern as Arroyo was historic, incredible, fantastic, phenomenal, unhittable and absolutely superb against the Buffalo Bisons.
Arroyo was, in fact, perfect.
The 26-year-old right-hander pitched a masterful perfect game, facing 27 Bisons and sending them all back to the dugout shaking their head as the PawSox made it two straight wins, 7-0, before an awestruck and appreciative crowd of 9,940 fans at McCoy Stadium.
Brilliant command of his pitches, including getting first-pitch strikes on an incredible 22 of the 27 batters he faced, ensured the trademark outing by Arroyo. Breezing through the first three innings on just 33 pitches and with a five-run cushion after two innings, Arroyo relaxed and did what he does best — keeping the hitters guessing and sending them back to the dugout as fast as they came out.
Needing just 101 pitches (73 for strikes) in the masterpiece, Arroyo went to three balls on just three batters — hard-hitting Alex Escobar worked a full count to open the second before lining out to short, Brandon Phillips managed a 3-2 count before flying out to center for the second out of the fourth and Chris Wakeland looked at a full-boat called third strike, ending the fifth frame.
In that fifth inning, six of the 15 pitches Arroyo threw were outside the strike zone. Other than that, only once (third inning) did Arroyo miss the strike zone more than three times in an inning. This was a man in the zone.
The only thing close to a hit came in the sixth. With one out, Luis Garcia slugged the first pitch deep to center field. PawSox center fielder Adrian Brown raced back to the wall about 395 feet away and hauled the ball in just before running out of room.
After that, it was all icing on the cake. In fact, five of Arroyo's nine strikeouts came over the final three frames.
With the FanFest Day crowd on its feet for the entire ninth inning, the former Pittsburgh Pirate put on a clinic.
Pinch-hitter Mark Little struck out on three pitches. Garcia was caught looking at a 1-2 change-up for the second out. With the crowd screaming with every pitch, Arroyo induced Scott Pratt to hit a slow roller to the right of first baseman Andy Abad. Abad flipped the ball to Arroyo, who won the foot-race to the bag and pandemonium broke out on the field as the PawSox charged their history-making ace.
Arroyo finished with nine strikeouts to lift his league-leading total to a career-high 149 and lowered his earned run average to 3.58 with his first and the team's second complete game of the season. The 6-foot-5, 190-pounder had pitched 8 1/3 innings in a 4-2 win over Ottawa on July 31, but was coming off of his first loss after four wins in his last outing this past Tuesday. Arroyo improved his record to 12-6, tying him for the IL lead in victories.
“ (It was) one of those days, where I didn't feel especially great out of the bullpen,” understated Arroyo. “ After you get through three or four innings of easy work and you haven't thrown many pitches, you kind of keep rolling and rolling as the game goes on. With the crowd getting how they were, it's kind of hard not to have some energy out there.
“ These guys (Pawtucket) afforded me that (getting a 5-0) lead early in the game after that just keep going.”