Nolan Ryan: 'It's a matter of time' before Darvish gets a no-hitter

Published May. 12, 2014 11:18 p.m. ET

Shawn Ramsey

HOUSTON - Texas Rangers ace Yu Darvish came one out away from pitching his first-career no-hitter Friday night against the Red Sox. Last season, while pitching in Houston during the second game of the season, he lost a perfect game with two outs in the ninth. With two close calls under his belt, Texas pitching legend Nolan Ryan thinks it is only a matter of time before he is able notch his first.

Ryan, speaking to the media prior to the Rangers matchup in Houston against the Astros, knows from experience what it is like to lose multiple no-hitters in the ninth inning after doing so on five different occasions, which is a major-league record to go along with his more prominent record of seven all-time completed no-hitters.

"Oh I think it's a matter of time before he puts it together and gets one," Ryan said. "It's pretty interesting how many times he's been in that position in a short period of time."

Ryan believes the game's emphasis on set pitch counts in games is part of the issue why Darvish hasn't been able to complete a no-hitter.

"Well I think it's magnified with Yu because it's happening in the ninth inning and so everybody thinks 'oh well what does he have to do to get over the hump?'" Ryan said. "It's just the way it's worked out. But I think too that when you use the pitch lineament as baseball is doing nowadays that it increases the challenge to maintain your stuff later in the game to pass the number of pitches you normally throw. So it's just a different set of circumstances too that can lend to that."

As far as his own accomplishments, Ryan thinks even his impressive pitching records will one day be broken.

"People ask me about that and I tell them the record that will probably fall the first is the no-hitter," Ryan said. "You have somebody that comes into the league in a short period of time that has that kind of stuff and might put it together and have some really outstanding games. The strikeout record out you have to accumulate a lot of innings and the way we use starting pitching now, that's probably the next one."

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