Marlin No-Hits Giants, 9-0 Brown Has Good Reason To Scream After A Dominating Performance

Kevin Brown tried to walk away.

But there was nowhere to go, no place to hide.

So he stood in the middle of the field Tuesday, throwing his hands in the air, looking toward the heavens. Then he did what Kevin Brown does so often and so well.

He screamed.

It was over. Brown, the Florida Marlins pitcher who lives and dies with his own emotions as much as any man in baseball, had just tossed a no-hitter, had just stepped into baseball lore with a 9-0 victory over the San Francisco Giants.

“He was dominating,” said Marlins manager Jim Leyland. “I’ve seen some nohitters that were not dominating, but he was dominating today. The ball was moving so much … you usually can’t see the ball move from the dugout. But you could see it today. I felt like he had unhittable stuff today.”

And it was almost fitting that Brown - who has spent so much of his career in the corner of the dugout or the shadows of his team, talking to himself, screaming at himself, battling the demands of always trying to be the perfect pitcher - had nowhere to hide.

When he turned, the Marlins were dancing out of the dugout, mobbing Brown, celebrating the second no-hitter in franchise history. And Brown tossed his head back and smiled. He has never looked happier in a baseball uniform - and he had never pitched better.

Never.

He had never thrown a no-hitter in Little League or in high school, back in Macon, Ga., where he was known as the team’s best hitter, a shortstop who also was a pretty good pitcher. Brown, 32, who wasn’t recruited, planned on being an engineer, and walked on the baseball team at Georgia Tech.

“I never thought I would pitch a no-hitter, never thought about it,” said the ever self-critical Brown. “I’m a ground-ball pitcher, and I always think that one of those balls will find its way through.”

Brown and Giants starter William VanLandingham had dueling no-hitters through six innings. In the seventh, Charles Johnson hit a homer to get Florida’s offense started.

And Brown just kept returning Giants batters to the dugout. He had retired the first 23, then made the pitch that kept him from the 15th perfect game in baseball history.

With two out in the eighth, and two strikes on pinch hitter Marvin Benard, Brown threw a fastball inside. It hit Benard - “A pad on my right leg” - and perfection was lost.

“Yeah, it was disappointing,” Brown said. “But I didn’t want to lose focus. Even at that point, I just wanted to finish the game out strong. It (pressure of the no-hitter) wasn’t an overbearing feeling. I was really calm until the last inning. The last couple of innings, I was just trying hard to pitch a good game. I wasn’t trying to reach out and grab hold of the no-hitter.”

When Brown took the mound in the ninth, the Giants crowd of 10,257 at 3Com Park showered him with applause.

One ground ball to the first baseman, another to the shortstop and a strikeout of Darryl Hamilton to end the game. Brown’s work was done.

Brown, the ultimate perfectionist, who complains after throwing shut-outs, had struggled lately, losing his last two games with a horrendous 9.75 ERA.

“After the first pitch, I knew it was going to be a very long day,” said Hamilton, who led off for the Giants and had to face Brown four times.

Brown threw just 99 pitches, and 85 were fastballs - 68 for strikes.