19 Dallas Braden, Oakland Athletics May 9, 2010
Like Jim Bunning 16 seasons earlier, Dallas Braden tossed his gem on a personally highly meaningful day— Mother's Day. The Oakland A's left-hander lost his mother to cancer as a teenager and was raised by his grandmother, who happened to be in the stands to witness his historic achievement.
Braden's feat came against the same Tampa Bay Rays team that suffered a perfect game at the hands of Buehrle less than a year earlier. The 2010 edition, though, came into the game as the hottest team in baseball, sporting a major league best 22-8 record.
Apparently, the Rays do not match up well against crafty lefties as Braden deploys a very similar pitching style to that of Buehrle. The only major difference this time around was that there were no ninth inning histrionics. The closest the Rays got to a hit was Jason Bartlett's line-out to open the game.
The young pitcher is just 18-26 at this point in his career, but has demonstrated continual improvement over his four years in the "Bigs." Based on his Mother's day performance, the future looks bright for the 26-year old pitcher.
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