Three Houston Astros pitchers throw combined no-hitter in shutout victory over Texas Rangers

The Houston Astros capped a four-game winning streak with a dominant 9-0 victory over the Texas Rangers on Monday, pitching a combined no-hitter and shutout that marked Major League Baseball’s first such outing since September 2024.

Tatsuya Imai delivered the opening frame with six innings of work, retiring the final 16 batters he faced in succession. Steven Okert took over for the seventh inning and initially struggled, walking three of his first four opponents, but benefited from a double play to find his footing. Alimber Santa closed out the eighth in his major league debut, flawlessly retiring all six batters he encountered. The game concluded on a dramatic note as Santa induced a called third strike against Brandon Nimmo, a pitch that survived a batter-initiated automated ball-strike challenge.

The no-hitter was the 17th in Astros franchise history and the fourth combined effort for the team, which famously utilized multiple pitchers to silence the Philadelphia Phillies during the 2022 World Series. The last individual complete-game no-hitter in the majors occurred in August 2024, when Blake Snell held the Cincinnati Reds hitless. The shutout also marked only the sixth time the Texas Rangers have been held without a hit, the previous occasion coming in May 2021 when Corey Kluber threw a no-hitter against them for the New York Yankees.

Imai is in his first big-league season after arriving from Japan. The 28-year-old right-hander joined Houston in January after agreeing to a $54 million, three-year contract. A three-time All-Star during eight seasons in Japan, he went 10-5 with a 1.92 ERA last season for the Pacific League’s Seibu Lions.