Montas shines at Coors Field, takes no-no into 7th

DENVER -- Frankie Montas often mentions that he just wanted to show this season that he was healthy after missing most of 2023 recovering from shoulder surgery. But it had become crystal clear after some recent starts that just being at full strength wasn't anywhere near enough for the Reds starting pitcher; Montas craved results, which had been hard to come by.

He found them Tuesday -- at Coors Field, of all places -- taking a no-hitter into the seventh inning in 4-1 Reds victory over the Rockies.

"It was a perfect example of pitching," Reds catcher Luke Maile said.

With two wins over Colorado ahead of Wednesday's finale, the Reds have won back-to-back series for the first time since they took their first two series of the season.

Montas gave up one hit over seven scoreless innings while he walked two and struck out nine. He’s the first visiting pitcher ever at Coors Field to throw at least seven shutout innings with at least nine strikeouts and no more than one hit allowed.

“If I had thrown that no-hitter, that would be dope, I’ll tell you that," Montas said. "I probably wouldn’t sleep for two nights.”

Only Hideo Nomo of the Dodgers can boast throwing a no-hitter at Coors Field. It happened way back in 1996.

Montas retired his first 11 batters in a row -- with four strikeouts -– before issuing a two-out walk to Ryan McMahon in the fourth inning. He realized he had special stuff in the first.

"After I struck out those two guys in the first inning, I was like ‘OK, my stuff is really playing tonight,'" Montas said. "I focused on attacking the guys and let my stuff play.”

The offense backed Montas with enough runs. Elly De La Cruz crushed a Statcast-projected 448-foot solo homer to center field in the third inning, his first long ball since May 11 and 10th overall. Maile and Stuart Fairchild added a pair of two-out RBI singles in the fourth.

After two strikeouts by Montas in the fifth inning, Brenton Doyle reached on two errors in one play by third baseman Jeimer Candelario and Jake Cave walked, but Montas escaped the jam when Hunter Goodman flied out to right field.

"When a guy's throwing 97 with good mix pitches, that's a tough one to cover," McMahon said. "He was changing the shape on sliders -- as a cutter, he could throw it as a normal one, as a bigger one -- they were all coming out looking pretty similar."

Montas used five different pitches, but his four-seam fastball was very effective -- especially at the top of the strike zone -- getting six of his strikeouts on it.

And of the 18 swings against his slider, he got eight misses.

“All the credit goes to him," Maile said. "His last bullpen day in Chicago, we just had a good hour-plus long talk breaking down sequencing and where we’re trying to get him to. I thought it was really good. It was just excellent work by him. His attention to detail and how hard he works, it’s really fun to be a part of back there.”

The sixth inning had the Rockies go down in order and Montas carried a no-hitter into the seventh inning for just the second time in his career. The other time was June 23, 2022, for the A's vs. the Mariners.

“You’re playing defense behind him, and you see him dominating. You’re aware of what’s going on," said first baseman Spencer Steer, who was 2-for-4 with a first-inning RBI double. "He was dealing. He was getting ahead of guys. And when he got ahead of guys, he was putting them away. That’s the Frankie that we expect every time he goes out there.”

Elias Díaz notched the first Rockies hit of the game with a double lined to the gap in left-center field to lead off the bottom of the seventh inning.

Entering the night, Montas was 0-4 with a 5.86 ERA in his previous eight starts while the Reds went 1-7 in those games. His last start, on Wednesday vs. the Cardinals, was a quality outing but Montas also labored during some long innings for a 5-3 loss and was not happy about it.

“I was frustrated because I know the type of pitcher I am," Montas said. "Definitely better than the way I’ve been pitching. Don’t get me wrong, I was happy to put up a quality start last time, but I am better than that.”

On Tuesday, Montas went out and proved it.