James Paxton just pitched a no-hitter for the Seattle Mariners. On only 99 pitches, Paxton dominated the Toronto Blue Jays, leading the Mariners to an impressive 5-0 victory on Tuesday night (May 8). The Mariners are starting off a tough road trip in Canada, and this may have been the best-case scenario for the franchise.

Paxton, a Canadian native himself, was basically pitching in front of his home crowd in this game. That makes this no-hitter even more special, especially with how easy he made it look on the mound. Over the nine innings of work, Paxton walked three hitters and struck out seven, notching another win for his season.

Silencing the Mariners chatter

Coming into this game, there had been a number of Seattle Mariners rumors about Ichiro Suzuki and his future with the team. Included in that chatter is whether he will begin the 2019 MLB season on the 25-man roster. The Mariners are also coming off of a rough series against the Los Angeles Angeles, where they lost two-of-three games at Safeco Field. Both sub-stories have been silenced now and James Paxton's no-hitter is going to dominate social media for a while.

Season looking good for Mariners

With this 5-0 win by the Seattle Mariners, the team improves to 20-14 on the season. That's good enough for third place in the American League West, even though the team still has some work to do in order to catch the Houston Astros and Los Angeles Angels.

Finishing off this road trip with several more series wins could certainly steer the team in the right direction.

James Paxton now has a 2-1 record and has lowered his ERA to just 3.40 on the season. It also shows how much better Paxton can pitch when Mike Zunino is serving as his catcher. To start out the 2018 MLB season, Zunino was on the disabled list, forcing Paxton to work with several different guys behind the plate.

Zunino is very underrated with how well he can center pitches and he can often steal a few strikes for his starters in the course of a game.

This is now two very impressive starts in a row for Paxton. On May 2 against the Oakland Athletics, he allowed just five hits over seven innings. Those weren't the most noteworthy statistics though.

On the night, Paxton struck out 16 hitters, setting a team-high and personal best for the season. In his previous start against the Cleveland Indians, Paxton struck out 10 hitters in just six innings. It is now clear that Paxton is going to be in the running for American League Pitcher of the Month for May.
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