The Blue Jays got Blancoed for the record books on Monday . . .

You know a man of my ability
he should be smokin’ on a big cigar.
But ’till I get myself straight
I guess I’ll just have to wait
in my rubber suit rubbin’ these cars.

–Jim Croce, “Workin’ at the Car Wash Blues”

I have no idea if Ronel Blanco knows who Jim Croce was, never mind if he’s heard the old troubador’s music. But the Dominican righthander who worked at a car wash in his homeland before the Astros handed him a $5,000 bonus when he was 22 can smoke all the big cigars he wants now.

You earn such spoils if you become only the fourth pitcher in Show history to throw a no-hitter for your team’s first win of the regular season, a club that includes Hall of Famer Bob Feller (who did it in 1940, on Opening Day) plus Burt Hooton (Cubs, 1972) and Hideo Nomo (Red Sox, 2001). You earn them when you break Nomo’s record for the earliest regular-season no-hitter in Show history by two days. (Nomo: 4 April; Blanco: 2 April.)

But you might care to share them with your catcher, Yanier Diaz, since he also became the first since 1901 to call a no-hit game from behind the plate and hit a pair out in the same game: solo blasts with two out in the second and one out in the seventh. And, with your left fielder Kyle Tucker, who joined Diaz going long in both innings, a solo in the second and a two-run shot in the seventh.

And pass one to your manager, Joe Espada, who’s become the first manager in Show history to be on the bridge when his first major league win comes with a no-hitter. You might have needed to wait until age 28 to get to the Show at all but Espada ground away a very long time as a minor league infielder turned minor and major league coach before becoming the Astros’ bench coach after 2017.

All that plus a changeup described politely as nasty kept the Blue Jays’s bats from hitting anything past Astro fielders when not striking out while the Astros dropped a ten-run, twelve-hit assault upon last year’s AL wild card victims. (They lost two straight to the Twins in that set.)

All the Astros wanted in Minute Maid Park was to shake off the season-opening sweep the Yankees dropped on them that included three comeback wins for the latter. They couldn’t have gotten a better shake-off if they’d hired a scriptwriter and his number-one script doctor at once.

Fairly enough, the Jays exacted a little revenge the following day. José Altuve wants to open the proceedings with a leadoff bomb against José Berríos in the top of the fourth? We’ll just see about that, said Davis Schneider, with two out in the top of the ninth and Daulton Varsho pinch-running for Justin Turner, hammering Josh Hader’s slightly hanging slider more than slightely beyond the center field fence. Thus the 2-1 Jays final.

But it wasn’t enough to dull or diminish Blanco’s blanking Monday. Nobody can take that from him.

MEANWHILE, ELSEWHERE IN THE RECORD BOOKS

Slumpbusting Thumps Dept.—Bryce Harper opened the season 0-for-11 with only a pair of walks placing him on base. Then he took it out on Reds started Graham Ashcraft on Tuesday for openers, hitting a 1-2 service over the Citizens Bank Park center field fence in the bottom of the first. He abused Ashcraft opening the bottom of the fourth, too, hitting the first pitch into the lower right field seats.

Harper wasn’t even close to finished, either. With the bases loaded, one out, and Brent Suter, the second Reds reliever of the night, on the mound, Harper unloaded on a full count and sent one two-thirds of the way up the lower right center field seats. Making the score 8-1, Phillies. They needed all that insurance plus Brandon Marsh’s solo bomb in the top of the ninth, after all, since the Reds pried three more runs out before expiring on the wrong end of a 9-4 Phillies win.

Harper became the 56th player and third Phillie to hit three home runs including a salami slice in the same game. The previous two such Phillie phloggers: Should-be Hall of Famer Dick Allen (29 September 1968) and Jayson Werth (16 May 2008). All three such games have something else in common: thirteen runs scored total, though Allen’s and Werth’s resulted in 10-3 Phillie wins.

OH, BY THE WAY . . .

Place Your Betts Dept.—Mookie Betts has now played eight regular-season games this year. He has five home runs, fifteen hits in 38 plate appearances, and eight walks. The only problem there is that four of the five times he hit them out there wasn’t a Dodger to be found on base ahead of him, and the Dodgers have been 3-2 in the games he’s dialed the Delta Quadrant so far.

But the Mookie Monster has also scored fourteen times, and other than by himself it seems Freddie Freeman has shown him the most love after he’s reached base: Freeman has sent him home five times over those first eight.

Did I mention that, as of Wednesday morning, Betts leads the National League in hits, bombs, walks, and total bases? That he leads the NL with a .605 on-base percentage thus far? That he leads the entire Show with his 1.772 OPS?