Unbelievable Start for Houston Astros Pitcher

Ronel Blanco has had an unbelievable, historic start to the 2024 season. The starting pitcher from the Houston Astros followed his no-hitter on April 1 with five more innings of no-hit baseball on Sunday against the Texas Rangers.

His streak of 44 consecutive outs before allowing a hit is the longest such streak to begin a season by any pitcher since 1893. Blanco didn’t allow a hit until facing his 51st batter of the season. For the Astros, It’s the second-longest consecutive outs streak in club history behind Mike Scott’s 51 outs during his National League Cy Young season in 1986.

“It doesn’t really surprise me,” Blanco said. “I’m a believer the hard work you do is going to pay off at some time or another, and it really doesn’t surprise me. I knew this was going to come.”

Through his first two starts, opposing hitters are 1-for-46 against Blanco with 11 strikeouts and six walks in 15 innings. According to Stathead, he’s the first pitcher in the modern era (since 1900) to pitch at least 15 innings and allow one hit or fewer in his first two outings of a season.

“We always knew how good he is at throwing strikes,” Astros manager Joe Espada said. “He’s aggressive in the zone. This guy, he’s tough. He’s not scared of challenging hitters. We knew the makeup aspect of things, but the way he’s been able to pitch and navigate tough lineups has been pretty impressive.”

Blanco only needed 105 pitches when he no-hit Toronto but ran into some trouble with a 28-pitch second inning and 20-pitch fifth. He started the sixth inning with 81 pitches.

“He’s got great stuff,” Rangers manager Bruce Bochy said following Sunday’s game in Texas. “He’s obviously coming off a no-hitter and he carried that into tonight’s game. He’s got a good fastball, it’s got a lot of life on it. He’s got a great changeup and slider, too. He just pitched great. He just shut us down.

“Give him credit. Pretty impressive really, the run that he’s gotten on here the first two games of the season.”

Blanco’s start has been fun to watch, especially for his teammates who thought he was going to tie Johnny Vander Meer — the only pitcher to throw consecutive no-hitters in 1938 for the Reds. Blanco came up 10 outs short of tying history.

“He’s a horse, man,” Pressly said. “We thought he was going to go the whole way again. Come the sixth inning, I was like, ‘Gah, he’s going to do it again.’ It’s fun to watch him throw. I can’t say enough about how hard he works. It’s definitely paid off.”