Padres' shift on Cespedes ends Rea's no-hit bid

The San Diego Padres remain the only team in Major League Baseball without a no-hitter to their credit, despite the best efforts of right-hander Colin Rea, who tossed 6 2/3 innings of hitless ball Thursday.

Rea held a powerful New York Mets offense without a knock until Yoenis Cespedes used a Padres shift against them in the seventh, smacking a grounder through the right side after San Diego lined up three infielders to the left of second base.

"I loved watching Colin chase (the no-hitter) for as long as he got the opportunity to chase it tonight," manager Andy Green told reporters in postgame comments. "It would've been great to go a little bit longer. Somebody should've just told me not to shift on Cespedes."

Green has successfully employed the same kind of shift on more than one occasion throughout the season, so the idea wasn't an unfamiliar one to the team. It just happened to come with unfortunate results.

"That's obviously tough," said first baseman Wil Myers, who was the only position player on the right side when the hit occurred. "Everybody out there knew what was going on. But that's the way the game goes sometimes. We leave a hole open and a good hitter exploits that."

Rea wound up lasting eight innings, allowing three hits and one run in the process, and despite losing his no-hitter to the shift, was appreciative of the good things it did for him throughout the contest.

"The shift came into play multiple times before that. It saved more hits tonight than we gave up," he explained.

Rea moved to 3-1 on the season, lowering his ERA to 3.82 with the sparkling performance.