Cubs' Yan Gomes wears Northwestern football helmet postgame
Yan Gomes wears Northwestern football helmet postgame originally appeared on NBC Sports Chicago
In the eighth inning, with a Drew Smyly perfect game on the line, he and catcher Yan Gomes collided down the third base line while both were attempting to field a short infield hit from David Peralta.
It appeared, without context, both didn't give way on going for the ball and Gomes ended up accidentally tackling Smyly. The play rendered impossible and the Dodgers broke up Smyly's perfect outing near the end of the eighth inning.
Gomes, comically, and metaphorically taking the blame for the incident, donned a Northwestern football helmet for his postgame interviews.
"I didn't think I was gonna be recovering a fumble today," Gomes joked.
Smyly told reporters after the game that Gomes tried to wave him off the ball vocally. But Smyly resisted, believing he had a better angle at the ball to be able to make the play. Both went for it at the same time and ended up crashing into each other.
The duo ended up on the ground in shock. Smyly with the ball, and the end of his perfect game, in hand. They stayed, stunned, for a few heavy seconds. But in the end, they laughed it off and got back to baseball.
It was truly an unfortunate end to what would've been the Cubs' first perfect game in franchise history. On the same date as Friday, April 21, former Cub Jake Arrieta threw his second no-hitter in 2016. Former White Sox pitcher Philip Humber threw a perfect game in 2012 on the same date, too.
"It's an aggressive play," Gomes said. "It just came to the point where both of us wanted it. He got to it before I did. I'm not as quick as I used to be, tried to jump out of the way and ended up riding him."
"Him and I both just looked at each other like 'I can't believe it ended like that,'" Smyly said. "It's just a baseball play. It happens. Sometimes you can hit a ball really hard at somebody, and sometimes you can do that. It is what it is."
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Still, Smyly recorded his best outing of the season. He pitched 7.2 innings, allowing one hit and tacking on 10 strikeouts and 103 pitches, 68 of which were strikes. Jeremiah Estrada finished out the game, pitching the leftover 1.1 innings with three strikeouts.
The Cubs rightfully earned a dominant win over a juggernaut in the Dodgers. Smyly's performance hid the fact that the Cubs recorded 13 runs on 17 hits, moving their record to 12-7 on the season.
The play is undoubtedly an unfortunate highlight of the game, but Gomes prefers to look at the positive of Smyly's tremendous outing.
"I'd hate for that play to get overlooked," Gomes said. "He had a tremendous outing and a phenomenal bounce-back from last night. We could've easily held our heads down. But that's a good team out there and we just one-hit shutout. That's a big outing for us."
