When he walks to the Petco Park mound on Thursday night to face the Pittsburgh Pirates, Eric Lauer will have an opportunity to do what 8,019 Padres starters before him could not — throw a no-hitter.

No pressure.

If Lauer allows a hit, it will mark the club’s 8,020th game without a no-hitter, eclipsing the record set by the Mets.

New York’s streak froze at 8,019 games on June 1, 2012, when Johan Santana held St. Louis hitless in an 8-0 home win over the Cardinals.

That left the Padres as the only franchise in the majors without a no-hitter.

“That’d be something to knock out this year,” Padres manager Andy Green said recently. “That would be fun.”

The most memorable moment in the Padres’ no no-no history came July 21, 1970 in what has come to be known as “The Curse of Clay Kirby.”

After throwing eight no-hit innings against the Mets at San Diego Stadium, Kirby was pulled for a pinch hitter by manager Preston Gomez. With the Padres trailing 1-0 (and owning the worst record in the NL), Cito Gaston was sent to the plate. Gaston struck out.

In the ninth, Bud Harrelson greeted Padres reliever Jack Baldschun with a leadoff single.


Fifty years, one month and eight days have passed without a Padres no-no. Who could have imagined it would come to this?

With a number of lively young arms on the staff, anticipation has increased for the moment finally coming to pass.

Padres rookie phenom Chris Paddack is everyone’s favorite to accomplish the feat.

Green pumped the brakes on Paddack or any other current Padres starter — Joey Lucchesi, Nick Margevicius, Eric Strahm or Lauer — doing it by themselves.


“It’s tougher for us to have one by one guy because we have some constraints on our starters,” said Green, alluding to pitch counts placed on some pitchers because of their youth and/or relatively recent return from Tommy John surgery.

A combined no-hitter wouldn’t be as memorable as one by a starter who went the distance, but what the heck?

“Take it any way we can get it, right?” Green said.

There is this: How appropriate would it be to see the “Curse of Clay Kirby” end with a guy named Kirby on the mound?


Padres closer Kirby Yates is the logical candidate to finish out a potential no-hitter.

Yates knows what it feels like both to realize the accomplishment and be denied it.

He was part of a combined no-hitter in the minor leagues in 2013 for the Triple-A Durham Bulls. In 2010, Yates was one strike away from a combined no-hitter for Double-A Bowling Green when he gave up a single to Fort Wayne’s Jason Hagerty.

“Obviously, you would like to be part of a no-hitter in the big leagues,” Yates said. “Personally, I would like to see the guy who started the game go out there and finish it. He’s earned the right to try and finish it. That’s his game.”


The Padres have been on the wrong side of a no-hitter 10 times, the first just 38 days before the Kirby game in 1970, when they were no-hit by Pittsburgh’s Dock Ellis. Years later, Ellis said he accomplished the feat while tripping on LSD.

There have been 300 no-hitters in major league history. Of those, 133 have come since the Padres came into existence.

One of the most cruel ironies in all this is that the Montreal Expos, like the Padres an NL expansion team in 1969, got their no-hitter out of the way just nine games into their existence. Bill Stoneman did it in a 7-0 win over the Phillies. Three years later, Stoneman threw another one for good measure.


The Padres have come close to a no-hitter on many occasions — most recently last May when Jordan Lyles tossed 7 1/3 perfect innings against Colorado before Trevor Story singled.

The Padres have had 30 one-hitters, although in fewer than half of those occasions has the drama lasted until the seventh inning before the hit came.

They’ve had 22 games go into the eighth inning without allowing a hit, and five go into the ninth.

Twice they’ve been one out away from history — Steve Arlin in 1972 against the Phillies and Luke Gregerson (the fifth Padres pitcher of the game) in 2011 against the Dodgers.


It seems most major league pitchers have thrown a no-hitter at a lower level, be it Little League, high school or the minor leagues.

Margevicius recalled throwing a perfect game as a sophomore at Cleveland’s Saint Ignatius High.

“I was just throwing strikes and they didn’t want to hit, so it was pretty easy for me,” said Margevicius, explaining that “it was snowing in the third inning and everyone was trying to get out of there, so you could probably put an asterisk next to that one.”

At Single-A Fort Wayne last year, Margevicius pitched 5 2/3 no-hit innings in the season opener before allowing a hit and immediately leaving.


“It’s pretty tough with the pitch counts and lineups you face,” he said. “No. 1, you’ve got to be efficient. Probably a lot of quick outs. You can’t really get too deep in the count. But it’s hard to be efficient and not give up hits because if you’re being efficient that means you’re getting a lot of balls put in play and the chances of one of them dropping is pretty good statistically.”

There have been 13 no-hitters pitched since the start of the 2015 season. They have required as few as 98 pitches (by Miami’s Edinson Volquez against Arizona in 2015) and as many as 146 pitches (when four Dodgers pitchers combined to no-hit the Padres last year in Monterrey, Mexico). On average, 118 pitches were thrown to complete the task.

Asked what would happen if he got to the late innings now with a no-hitter, Margevicius said: “I think they would let us go out and pitch if we got to that situation, eighth or ninth.”

Green isn’t so sure.


“That’s a great question,” he said. “We haven’t really been there. We’ve been there one time with Tyson Ross in the eighth inning (his bid ended last April after 7 2/3 innings on his 127th pitch against Arizona).

“It really depends on who’s on the mound. When it was Tyson Ross, a 30-something-year-old veteran and it’s 100-and-some

pitches, go, man. Try to do something special. I’m not going to stop you, especially in a year where we weren’t chasing down a pennant at any point in time.

“If it’s Chris Paddack, he’s not getting a chance. That’s not to be a curmudgeon or somebody who’s trying to be a killjoy.”

Paddack understands.


“They’re looking out for my career,” he said. “They’re not just looking out for the 2019 season. They’re looking out for the — hopefully — the 2029 season.”

Paddack threw a no-hitter as a sophomore in 2013 for his first career win at Texas’ Cedar Park High.

“I’ve had some luck through my years in high school,” said Paddack, who threw four no-hitters at Cedar Park. “At this level, man, no-hitters, perfect games, shutouts, complete games. Those four things are rare. It’s so hard to do at this level. Hitters are just hard to get out.”

Paddack made it look easy in his major league debut this season, retiring the first 10 hitters he faced against the San Francisco Giants, then telling reporters afterwards “I had envisioned retiring the first 27.”


Paddack said he is one of those guys who always knows how many strikeouts, walks and hits he has allowed.

“That’s just always how I’ve been,” he said. “Let’s say I’ve gone five innings and have no hits. You better believe I’m going to know that.

“That’s when you’ve got to be on the same page with the catcher. His goal is to keep you locked in, not try to do too much and start overthinking.”

Paddack has not thrown more than 92 pitches in any of his starts this season, so what happens if he gets to that number with a no-hitter intact late in a game?


“If it came down to the eighth inning and I had a no-hitter going and I’m at 90 pitches, I will bear down and go and tell him I want the ball.

“Any other situation, I’m not going to do that because I respect what they’re doing.”

Said Green: “If he’s got it under a certain number, then we’ll give him a shot. But he’s got to have it under a certain number.”

What’s that number?


“That number’s for us and not for anybody else,” Green said. “I don’t want those guys to know that number.”

It will be fascinating to watch the manager pry the ball out of the hand of one of his pitchers in such a situation.

“We all want to be that guy,” Paddock said. “I think it would be cool to happen to any of us.

“I hope it comes sooner than later.”


After 50 years, it can’t come too soon.