Jays' Romero pitches within six outs of no-hitter

romero throwing.JPG Toronto left-hander Ricky Romero put on a show this evening at the Rogers Centre, tossing seven innings of no-hit baseball before grazing White Sox catcher A.J. Pierzynski with an inside pitch and allowing a two-run homer to Alex Rios in the top of the eighth inning. In all, Chicago managed just one hit on Romero over eight superb innings.

The 25-year-old southpaw also pitched well in his 2010 debut last week against the Rangers and owns a 1.80 ERA, 0.67 WHIP and 16/4 K/BB ratio through 15 innings (two starts) this season. A former first-round pick, Romero has all the talent in the world and a strong arsenal of pitches. Finally, he’s starting to put it all together.

The Blue Jays are off to a 6-2 start and currently sit atop the American League East standings.

Terrible news for Blue Jays pitcher Matt Shoemaker: the MRI he had on his knee revealed a torn ACL. He’ll need surgery and will miss the remainder of the season.

Shoemaker was in the process of holding the A’s scoreless through three innings of three-hit, one-strikeout ball in his start on Saturday. He twisted his leg awkwardly when he ran over and tagged Matt Chapman between first and second base, however, and it was immediately clear that things weren’t right. He was initially diagnosed with a sprain, but the MRI showed that it was worse.

This is a tough break for Shoemaker, who had started off the season pretty fantastically, posting a 1.57 ERA over his first five starts this year.

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