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Miami's Volquez throws no-hitter Miami's Justin Bour, left, and Marcell Ozuna, center rear, pour ice and water onto starting pitcher Edinson Volquez after the Marlins defeated the Arizona Diamondbacks 3-0 in a no-hitter by Volquez. [THE ASSOCIATED PRESS] Saturday Jun 3, 2017 at 4:48 PM Jun 3, 2017 at 4:48 PM The Associated Press MIAMI — Edinson Volquez's day was nearly over after three pitches. And he strongly considered leaving the game after five innings because of sharp ankle pain. A couple hours later, nothing was hurting. He stuck around — and pitched the game of his life. Volquez threw the sixth no-hitter in Marlins history, facing the minimum 27 batters on Saturday and beating the Arizona Diamondbacks 3-0. Volquez (2-7) struck out 10, and the two baserunners who reached on walks were erased by double plays. He needed 98 pitches, the last of those striking out Chris Owings to complete the masterpiece. "When I passed the seventh, I said, 'I'm going to go for it,'" Volquez said. "And I got it." It's the first no-hitter in the majors this season, and the first time Arizona was no-hit since the Marlins' Anibal Sanchez threw one on Sept. 6, 2006. Volquez was nearly knocked out of the game after just one batter, when he collided with Diamondbacks leadoff man Rey Fuentes as he covered first, rolled his ankle and took a hard fall to the turf. "I thought I broke my ankle," he kidded after the game. Alas, that was the only hit the Diamondbacks got. Luckily for Volquez, body blows don't show up in the scorebook. The 33-year-old righty was one of the pitchers the Marlins brought in this past offseason in part to fill the void caused by the death of ace Jose Fernandez, who died in a boat crash last September — and who was on Volquez's mind as Saturday's game went along. His first season in Miami started about as badly as possible; the Marlins lost eight of his first nine starts and Volquez dropped his first seven decisions. Tied for the major league lead in losses going into Saturday, he was nearly perfect. "Just a lot of things lined up," Marlins manager Don Mattingly said. "And his stuff was really, really good." Nick Ahmed — who broke up a no-hit bid by Milwaukee's Chase Anderson in the eighth inning one week earlier — led off the ninth for Arizona and struck out on four pitches. Pinch-hitter Daniel Descalso came up, and after falling behind 2-0 lead in the count, Volquez stopped for a moment, composed himself with a deep breath, and eventually got the strikeout on a 2-2 fastball. That left it up to Owings, another pinch-hitter. Strike one. Strike two. And then came a swing and a miss for strike three, one that got away from catcher J.T. Realmuto for a brief moment before he fired to Justin Bour at first to seal the no-hitter as the Marlins swarmed the field in celebration. It was the Marlins' first no-hitter since Henderson Alvarez pitched one against Detroit on the final day of the 2013 regular season. Bour had two hits and two RBIs for the Marlins, Giancarlo Stanton scored twice and Christian Yelich and Marcell Ozuna both had two hits. Miami gave Volquez two insurance runs in the eighth, though they were hardly needed. Randall Delgado (1-1) gave up six hits and one run in 5 1/3 innings for Arizona.