Browning 3 Outs Shy of Second Perfect Game

PHILADELPHIA —  Someone told Tom Browning it looked liked rain was coming.

“I’ll try to get it in as quick as possible,” the Cincinnati left-hander responded.

Browning kept his word as he came within three outs of becoming the first pitcher to throw two perfect games in a career as the Reds beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 2-1, Tuesday night.

Dickie Thon opened the ninth with a double into right-center field. Browning recovered to strike out Steve Lake, but pinch-hitter Steve Jeltz singled to left to drive in Thon.

“The pressure was on him as well as me,” Thon said of his last at-bat.

John Franco replaced Browning and got Len Dykstra to hit into a double play to end the threat.

“I didn’t think I had good stuff before the game,” said Browning, who threw a perfect game against the Dodgers last Sept. 16 at Cincinnati. “I told Bo (Diaz, the catcher). I concentrated on every pitch.”

The 1-hour 44-minute game was the fastest in the National League this season. The previous fastest was 1:48, last Thursday between Atlanta and Cincinnati. Browing started that game, too.

For eight innings, the Reds had only two tough plays to make on defense.

In the first, third baseman Lenny Harris dove to his left and gloved Tom Herr’s smash, straightened up and threw out the runner.

At the start of the third, on Browning’s only 3-2 count of the game, Dykstra hit a line drive that first baseman Todd Benzinger speared.

Browning, who had a no-hitter June 6 against the San Diego Padres for 8 1/3 innings before Tony Gwynn’s single, said he didn’t think of a perfect game until Von Hayes grounded out to end the seventh inning.

“I thought then that I might have a chance,” he said.

Cincinnati teammate Ron Robinson got within one out of a perfect game against on May 2, 1988, against Montreal.