Sardine City edges Hoboken, 2-0, for critical Game 5 win

Daniel Norris and two relievers made Joc Pederson's 6th inning solo home run stand up before an insurance homer by Eric Hosmer in the 9th, to give Sardine City a 2-0 win in Game 5 at Hoboken.

Pederson homers twice to back Kluber

Joc Pederson smacked 2 solo home runs to back Corey Kluber's 4th win of the postseason, leading Sardine City to a 5-2 win in Game 3 over Hoboken.

Behind two homers from Yelich, Sardine City evens series

Sardine City evened its Best-of-7 series Thursday afternoon with a 4-3 win over top-seed Vancouver behind two home runs from a hot-hitting Christian Yelich and a solid outing by journeyman left-hander Daniel Norris.

Samardzjia comes within two outs of no-hitter

Pitching for his third team this season, Jeff Samardzjia very nearly wrote himself into the Sardine City record books, coming within two outs of tossing the franchise's first complete-game no-hitter last night.

Jimenez, Motte Combine For League's 10th No-Hitter

They'll be debating this one in Sardine City for years to come. The first no-hitter in franchise history was a combined effort with starter Ubaldo Jimenez and reliever Jason Motte splitting the duties as they shut down Hillsborough 8-0 on the road Tuesday night at Front Stadium by the River.

It's the 10th no-hitter (4th combined) in league history and the first since Brett Myers of Las Vegas no-hit New Jersey in June 2011. It's the first combined no-hitter since 2004 when Arkansas shut down Westwood behind Curt Schilling, Byung-Hyun Kim, Brad Lidge and Octavio Dotel. Hillsborough is the first team to be no-hit twice in their history, first victimized in 2003 by Phoenix's John Lackey.

Jimenez struck out four in five innings of work, tossing 55 pitches (40 for strikes), but still was lifted by Straphangers skipper Joe Torre after a 46-minute rain delay. Torre turned to Motte, who went on to throw four scoreless innings striking out two but walking three and throwing 38 of his 55 pitches for strikes. He earned his first save of the year as Jimenez got the win, improving to 10-11.

The only scoring for much of the contest came on rookie Eric Hosmer's leadoff home run in the 2nd inning. Sardine City third basemen Evan Longoria walked to start the 6th inning and that's when the rains came. When play resumed, Hillsborough manager Mike Greenwell didn't come back with ace Justin Verlander. Instead, he opted for Jeff Samardzija, who would get out of the inning unscathed, despite a wild pitch and another walk.

The Straphangers put up a four-spot in the 8th, including a three-run homer by Starlin Castro, and another three runs in the 9th behind run-scoring singles from Matt Wieters and Nick Markakis off Jonny Venters.

Verlander suffered the loss, dropping to 14-6, despite allowing just one run and four hits over five innings. He struck out four and walked one and threw 55 of his 84 pitches for strikes. Verlander nearly threw his own perfect game earlier this year against Hopatcong, settling for a 2-0 one-hitter.