Bridgewater 12-Year-Old Strikes Out Every Hitter In Perfect Game
BRIDGEWATER (CBS) - It's never happened in Major League Baseball, and who knows if it's ever happened anywhere. Tanner Brakken is in a league of his own.
Last Wednesday, the 12-year-old from Bridgewater threw a perfect game. There were two of those in the majors last season (with Oakland's Dallas Braden and Philadelphia's Roy Halladay doing the honors), but what separates Tanner from the pack was that he struck out every hitter he faced.
That's right: 18 up, 18 down by way of the strikeout.
WBZ-TV's Christina Hager reports
"A lot of people there were cheering him on and some were there cheering the batters on to try to get a hit off him," said Kim Brakken, Tanner's mom. "It was fun. It was a good day for Bridgewater."
In Little League, pitchers can only throw a maximum of 85 pitches per game. Tanner only needed 72.
"All I did that game was throw all fastballs," said Tanner, who added he can hit 70 mph on the radar gun.
Tanner, a Bridgewater Middle School student, continued his streak of dominant pitching in his next start this past Monday, when he struck out the first 11 hitters he faced, giving him 29 strikeouts in 29 straight plate appearances. After allowing his first hits and walks of the season, Tanner struck out four more hitters, meaning he has recorded all 33 outs this season via the strikeout.
"I just struck them out and yeah, I wasn't thinking it at all. It was getting them out. I don't care if it's a strikeout," said Tanner.
Little League officials told CBSBoston.com that there are as many as 10,000 games on a given night, and there's no way to accurately track the number of perfect games, especially games with 18 strikeouts. So, we may never know Tanner's exact place in history.
Tanner will look to continue his string of strikeouts in his next game on Saturday.
