Vancouver Canadians – Lazaro Estrada tosses no-hitter against the Tri-City Dust Devils

It’s been tough sledding in recent days for the Vancouver Canadians, who had lost six of their last seven entering Tuesday.

Last night, however, one of their better arms accomplished an impressive feat to bring the team back to winning ways. In Game 1 of the doubleheader, as 25-year-old starter Lazaro Estrada tossed a seven inning no-hitter against the Tri-City Dust Devils in 1-0 Canadians win. It was a great start by the Cuban right-handed pitcher, finishing with a line of 7 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 2 BB, and 8 K‘s in what was easily the best start of his career.

This is the second seven-inning no-hitter that the Canadians have thrown within the past two seasons; Devereaux Harrison and Matt Svanson (the return in the Paul DeJong trade) combined to toss a no-hitter on July 11th, 2023 against the Everett AquaSox.

Estrada retired his first eight batters of the game before walking Joe Stewart in the bottom of the 3rd. Stewart was caught stealing during the very next at-bat by Canadians catcher Jommer Hernandez, so Estrada had still faced the minimum to that point. Estrada would retire his next six batters, but he walked Cam Williams to lead off the bottom of the sixth to put some traffic on the bases with no one out. It wasn’t an issue for Estrada, however, as his went strikeout-fly out-ground out to get out of the inning unscathed.

Estrada pitched a three-up-three-down bottom of the 7th to complete the no-no, ultimately getting Jadiel Sanchez to fly out to end the game. Estrada would wind up facing 22 batters, just one over the minimum.

Estrada was signed in January of 2018 as a free agent and has had several stints between Bluefield, Dunedin, and Vancouver since then. The Ciudad Habana, Cuba native has spent time in Single-A Dunedin and High-A Vancouver this season, and he has excelled at both levels. He made only two starts in Dunedin on a rehab assignment, pitching to a 1.93 ERA across only 4.2 innings. He’s had a much larger sample size in Vancouver, as he  a 2.15 ERA and 0.99 WHIP through seven starts. If you’re into Toronto’s prospect pool, Estrada is definitely becoming a name to keep an eye on as he has one of the best curveballs in the organization with a mid-90s fastball.

Despite Estrada’s dominance, this game was a pitcher’s duel in its entirety. The Canadians had only five hits in the game, but the biggest one came in the top of the 6th when Nick Goodwin singled in Jamari Baylor with two outs to break the scoreless tie. That was the only at-bat that the Canadians had with runners in scoring position, and Goodwin made the most of it.