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Houston • Yu Darvish saw the ball skip between his shins, dashing his chance at perfection. Immediately, several Texas Rangers came to the mound to console him.

"I think my teammates were more disappointed than I was," he said through a translator.

Darvish was one out from a perfect game when Marwin Gonzalez grounded a clean single through the pitcher's legs, and Texas beat the Houston Astros 7-0 on Tuesday night.

The celebrated right-hander from Japan struck out a career-high 14 and was in complete control before Gonzalez smacked the first pitch up the middle. Darvish was unable to get his glove down in time and the ball skittered into center field well beyond a desperate dive by shortstop Elvis Andrus.

At that moment, one thought went through Darvish's mind.

"I can now go back to the dugout," he deadpanned. "Even if I got the complete game today, it's not going to translate to three or five wins. It's a win. A win's a win."

Darvish smiled and put up his hands — almost like, "Oh well, it happens." Texas' infielders quickly came to the mound, and manager Ron Washington joined them.

"I didn't want to be the last out," Gonzalez said. "I was trying to look for a good pitch to hit and put it in play. That's all I was thinking."

Washington patted Darvish on the chest and then signaled for a reliever. A crowd of 22,673 that included plenty of Rangers fans cheered Darvish as he walked off after 111 pitches. He stopped and tipped his cap before getting high-fives from teammates in the dugout.

He sat on the bench to watch the rest of the game, then joined the handshake line after the final out.

And if Darvish was upset about coming oh so close, he didn't show it.

"I went that far," he said. "I'm really satisfied."

Working from the stretch throughout — even though he never needed to — Darvish became the first pitcher to lose a perfect game with two outs in the ninth inning since Armando Galarraga on June 2, 2010. Of course, the Detroit pitcher was denied only because of an infamous missed call at first base by umpire Jim Joyce, who later admitted he blew the play.

Last year, there were a record three perfect games, thrown by Philip Humber, Matt Cain and Felix Hernandez.