with Nate Pearson and Porter Hodge getting the final six outs. That marks the fourth no hitter thrown in the big leagues this season, joining Ronel Blanco, Dylan Cease and Blake Snell. It's the first no hitter for the Cubs since 2021, which was also a combined no no. Alec Mills threw the last solo no hitter for the Northsiders back in 20 2012. Nothing is your final out at Wrigley. And who better to bring in as we now welcome in CBS sports, MLB writer and resident Cubs supporter Matt Snyder, on the heels of their combined no. No. And this is the first Cubs no hitter at Wrigley since 1972. So I know you enjoyed watching. This one. Played in 12 runs and playing a perfect game defensively, but I want to get your overall reaction to Wednesday's win over the Pirates, brilliant outing by Shota Imanaga, obviously. And then you've got the two relievers coming on to get those six outs, and they did it really, really quickly. I wasn't even really ready to come on for this spot for a second. Like, hey guys, you know, work some deeper counts. Pirates or something. Give me a chance here, again, great outing by Imanaga. He's been unbelievable this year. He should be in the race for rookie of the year. But, I mean, it's Paul Skenes and Jackson Merrill at the top there. Jackson Chourio of the Brewers. That's a really, really crowded field. But he's been amazing. And there is something that I would want to go back to. And that was in the sixth inning when Issac Paredes made two consecutive errors and it extended Imanaga by seven pitches. I just wonder if he was at 88 pitches through seven, if maybe, maybe Craig Counsell would have let him go for the no hitter. But look, it's fun to have a combined no hitter. It's just not near as fun when it's multiple people. Instead of just a starting pitcher going the distance. Okay, I want to ask you something on the heels of that, do you think combined no hitters kind of take away from the fun of it all? Are no hitters or combined? No nos kind of meaningless now? We've just seen so many in this day and age of specialization and starting pitchers who have, you know, the kid gloves on them from the organization. The first time it started, we started seeing this frequently. It feels like it was about ten years ago, but now it's kind of old hat. I mean, we've even seen it in the World Series, in the 2022 World Series, the Astros in Philadelphia threw a combined no hitter. So in the Cubs, the previous Cubs no hitter was in 2021. That was a combined no hitter with four pitchers in that one. This one was only three. Yeah, it's I would much rather be talking about a starting pitcher who went the distance and threw a no hitter. That seems like that's what should count. But you know what? It's still pretty cool for the Cubs fans who were in attendance today, not only to see such a blowout win and see a 12 nothing win with 17 hits, saw some home runs, saw a lot of cool extra base hits, saw a lot of traffic on the bases for their team. Hardly any traffic for the Pirates. And hey, they saw a no hitter so that it technically counts. So hey, whatever. It's still impressive nonetheless, but I want to dive into Yamanaka's outing. I mean, they took him out after seven. He was at 95 pitches. His highest outing was 103. I just want to get your thoughts. I know we talk about, you know, it's more impressive. Obviously when it's a solo no hitter, but considering pulling him at seven, what's your thoughts on that timing there, a couple things here. Number one, Justin Steele just went on the injured list and the Cubs are technically still in the wild card race, so Craig Council is probably worried about keeping the rest of the rotation healthy and not overextending a guy just for an individual accomplishment. Also, a reliever got up in the bullpen in the second inning, and the only reason that would happen is if the trainers talked to Imanaga and his translator and they thought something might not be right with him. Maybe in light of that, whatever that was, and we'll find out more after council talks to the media after the game here. But maybe there was something there like, hey, I definitely can't overextend him here, the other thing is, since it was through seven innings and not eight and he was eight pitches away from his season high, maybe the thought process was, man, he's not going to get two more here before we get up into the range. We don't want to be. And that's one of the reasons I thought about those two Paredes errors, which cost him seven pitches. If he was at 88 pitches through seven innings, maybe they would have given him the eighth just to see how many pitches it took in the eighth, just to feel out if he could go back out for the ninth. Yeah, that certainly could have changed how his outing went. But you talk about maybe preserving him, maybe something could be right or wrong, whatever it might be. But I just think about the long term when it comes to pitchers. The Cubs, let's be honest, they've been red hot as of late. They've now won seven of their last nine. What do you think about them? Do you think they can potentially make a run here? I'm not bullish on their chances to make a wild card, especially the way the Mets are playing right now. Like it's the Braves are in the spot. The Braves have won a couple games back to back. Now the Mets are going crazy. They're so hot. And the Cubs were four and a half games heading into tonight, that's still a very tall order here. When you're dealing with trying to pass two teams instead of just one. And you don't have a lot of head to head action in there where you can make up games on your own. So you're counting on a lot of other teams to beat up on two teams, including, as I said, the Mets, who have been so, so, so hot basically since the start of June, especially with steel going on the injured list today with the elbow injury. He's the ace of the club. It's just too hard to too tall of a hill to climb, in my opinion. And I would go back and look at Monday. They had a three nothing lead going into the eighth inning and they blew that game. If you're going to try to climb this type of a hill, you cannot make mistakes like that against the Pittsburgh Pirates. If you want to be a playoff team. Yeah, a tall hill to climb. But overall overarching story, it was impressive outing for the Cubs. No. Regardless of which way you kind of look at it, Matt Snyder congrats on the win and thanks so much for stopping by. Speaking of being impressive, take a look at the most no hitters by a franchise in MLB history. Cubs. Now with the third most no hitters behind the white Sox and the Dodgers, tied for the third most alongside the Giants andstros. And just add