Giants deal Halladay first loss of season, Jimenez looks to continue streak

As the old saying goes, all good things must end, and so it was on Monday night for the Phillies Roy Halladay, as the San Francisco Giants dealt the right hander his first National League loss in a 5-1 victory at AT & T Park.
Halladay had entered the night 4-0 for the Phillies, but three Giants players had two hits apiece, including a 2-run HR from catcher Eli Whiteside, and Jonathan Sanchez raised his record to 2-1, allowing just one run over 5 innings of work.
The Giants are 7-3 in their last 10 games, and are tied with the San Diego Padres for first place in the National League West, and 1 1/2 games ahead of third place Colorado. The Rockies will send Ubaldo Jimenez and his 16 1/3 scoreless innings to the mound tonight against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Coors Field. Jimenez is the first player in 17 years to follow up a Big League no-hitter with a scoreless outing the next time out. Following his masterpiece at Atlanta on April 17th, Jimenez went 7 1/3 scoreless innings at Washington on April 22nd.

As for no-hitters, look for possible fireworks tonight. There have been six no-hitters thrown in MLB History on April 27th, the last being thrown by then Phillies RH Kevin Millwood, against the Giants.
Jimenez, Millwood, the Braves Derek Lowe, the Tigers Justin Verlander, the ChiSox Mark Buehrle, twice, the Red Sox Clay Bucholz, and the Marlins Anibal Sanchez are all previous pitchers who have thrown no-no's, who will start for their respective clubs tonight.

Tonight at Comerica Park in Detroit, the Minnesota Twins and Detroit Tigers will play for the first time since the Twins 12 inning, 6-5 victory over the Tigers in Game #165 last October, giving Minnesota the A.L. Central Division Championship. The Twins will send left hander Fransisco Lirinao to the hill tonight against Detroit's Justin Verlander. The Twins lead the Tigers by 2.5 games as the two teams get set for a three game series tonight, Wednesday, and Thursday.

Today in Big League history...on April 27th, 1983, the Astros Nolan Ryan became the All-Time leader in strikeouts when he fanned the Expos Brad Mills for his 3,509th career K, passing Washington Senators Hall of Famer Walter Johnson.