Chicago Cubs pitcher Drew Smyly flirts with a perfect game in a 13-0 rout of the LA Dodgers: ‘Tough play to end it’

Drew Smyly has a perfect working relationship with Yan Gomes, and the Chicago Cubs left-hander said Friday that he’s almost always on the same page with his catcher.

Gomes helped guide Smyly to a near-perfect game against the Los Angeles Dodgers in a 13-0 win at Wrigley Field, but a collision between the two on a dribbler in the eighth inning ruined Smyly’s bid at history.

Smyly’s shot at becoming the first Cub to throw a perfect game ended on David Peralta’s infield hit leading off the eighth. Smyly (2-1) finished with 7⅔ one-hit innings, striking out 10 with no walks in a 103-pitch outing.

Smyly was at 93 pitches entering the eighth when he fielded Peralta’s swinging bunt. Gomes also ran out to field the ball and fell on top of Smyly while trying to get out of his way, preventing a throw to first from the pitcher.

“Tough play to end it,” Smyly said. “I mean, you feel you’re really close. Executed a good curveball and he barely hit it, tapped it. It wasn’t going to go foul. One of us had to make the play. I know Yan wanted it just as bad as I did.

“We both just ran and it was in the perfect place, man. We just got there at the same time. That part was disappointing. But I don’t think it takes away from the game and continuing to build and (continuing) on the good path.”

Smyly lay on the grass for a few seconds with a faint smile on his face.

“We 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.”

Gomes also couldn’t believe what had happened.

“I wanted to dig myself a hole and hide underneath it,” he said.

Two outs later, Smyly was removed and left to a standing ovation from the crowd of 30,381, which nervously reacted to every pitch from the fifth inning on, knowing what was at stake.

“It gives players goose bumps,” Smyly said, adding: “In the seventh inning it got so loud, I couldn’t even hear my PitchCom.”

Gomes said his earpiece had fallen off, so he couldn’t hear it either.

“I said ‘Throw the curveball,’ and he’s mouthing ‘Curveball,’ ” Gomes said. “I mean, that’s just kind of how today worked.”

The closest a Cubs starter has come to a perfect game was Milt Pappas, who walked San Diego’s Larry Stahl on a 3-2 pitch with two outs in the ninth on Sept. 2, 1972. Pappas competed the no-hitter against the Padres but was livid over a call by plate umpire Bruce Froemming that denied him the perfect game. The Cubs have thrown 17 no-hitters, including a combined no-no in 2021.

Gomes came to his locker to address the media afterward wearing a football helmet with a Cubs sticker on it.

“I guess he didn’t think he was going to be recovering a fumble today,” he said of the collision. “That was supposed to be a joke.”

The media politely laughed.

“It was an aggressive play,” Gomes . “Both of us went after it. It 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 getting out of the way, and I ended up riding him and becoming a cool picture.”

Whether Smyly could’ve thrown Peralta out was debatable. Gomes called for it, but Smyly felt it was an easier play for him to make,

“I should’ve been like ‘No, I’ve got it, I’ve got it,’ ” Smyly said.

Gomes said “we both would’ve had to have made a heck of a play” to nab Peralta at first.

If not for the hit, Cubs manager David Ross said he was ready to let Smyly finish off the perfect game, no matter his rising pitch count.

“Oh, yeah, I was going to ride him harder than Yan did,” Ross said with a grin. “Yeah, he was going.”

Replying primarily on his sinker and knuckle-curve, Smyly never missed a beat. He struck out six consecutive batters from the first into the third, and of the 11 flyouts and grounders he induced over the first seven innings, none merited a difficult play by any fielder.

“He was as locked in, and (the Dodgers) were as off-balanced as I’ve seen in a while,” Ross said.

Smyly had never gone seven innings without allowing a hit before. He knew he was perfect through three innings but said he didn’t think much about it.

“Those games don’t happen much,” he said.

There have been only 23 perfect games in baseball history and none since the Seattle’s Mariners’ Felix Hernandez’s against the Tampa Bay Rays on Aug. 15, 2012.

The Cubs offense made Smyly’s day easier. Cody Bellinger, Trey Mancini, Patrick Wisdom and Nico Hoerner homered in the rout, and everyone in the starting lineup had at least one hit. Hoerner finished with four of the Cubs’ 17 hits, while Mancini had three hits and 3 RBIs.

The Cubs improved to 12-7 with their eighth win in their last 11 games.

Before the game, the Cubs optioned Javier Assad to Triple-A Iowa to stretch out as a starter while calling up Iowa reliever Jeremiah Estrada, who relieved Smyly in the eighth. Estrada walked two and struck out three in 1⅓ innings, finishing off the combined one-hitter.

Smyly, who re-signed with the Cubs over the winter after becoming a free agent, said pitching at Wrigley was one of the reasons.

“Pitching here at Wrigley Field is so special, it’s so awesome,” he said. “Every single game the atmosphere is off the charts compared to anywhere else you go in this league. They’re so supportive, always behind you it feels.

“They’re never just there to watch the game. They really want his team to succeed and do good.”

Cubs fans got what they came to see Friday, even with an imperfect ending on a perfect afternoon.