It was 10 months ago that Corey Kluber, who had been such a great pitcher once for Cleveland, made his debut for the Rangers at Globe Life Field. He was coming back from an oblique injury in 2019 and then a fractured forearm when he was hit by a ball hit back to the mound. Kluber pitched to three batters on that Sunday afternoon last July, the only inning he would ever pitch for the Rangers before exiting the game because of pain in his right shoulder.

He had thrown 18 pitches.

The leadoff batter for the Rockies that day was David Dahl. Kluber, a two-time Cy Young winner in Cleveland, struck Dahl out.

“Hopefully [Kluber] comes in tomorrow feeling better,” Rangers manager Chris Woodward said at the time.

Kluber didn’t. The injury was classified as a Grade 2 tear of the teres major muscle. He finally recovered and signed with the Yankees as a free agent when other teams were interested in him as well. And then there he was, back at Globe Life Field on Wednesday night, throwing a no-hitter against the Rangers.

The second-to-last out was Dahl, who flew out to Tyler Wade in right field.

There had already been five other no-hitters thrown in Major League Baseball this season. All have been dramatic, because all no-hitters are. None were more dramatic than Kluber’s in Arlington, not one was a better story, just because of the long journey that began for Kluber on that same mound, in that same ballpark, in the short season of 2020.

"It was a lot of fun, I think it was a special night," Kluber said when it was over. "I've never been part of one, witnessed one, yet alone thrown one."

This was the kind of comeback no-hitter that Dwight Gooden threw for the Yankees almost 25 years ago, when he was the starter whose best days had come for another team; who came all the way back from injury and so many off-the-field issues you had lost count by then to throw the no-hitter -- against the Mariners -- he’d never thrown for the Mets when he was still great.

Gooden hadn’t missed the previous season because of injury the way Kluber had. He had been out of baseball for repeated violations of the league’s drug policy. But at the age of 32, and getting the start because David Cone had been diagnosed at the time with an aneurysm, Gooden survived six walks to pitch his own no-hitter. Three years later, it was Cone pitching his own perfect game, with Don Larsen in attendance at old Yankee Stadium, 33 years after Larsen had pitched his perfect game in the World Series against the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Cone was 36 when he pitched his perfect game. David Wells was three days short of his 35 birthday when he pitched his perfect game against the Twins in 1998. Larsen was 37 in the ’56 World Series. And Kluber, who had once been an ace before injuries and bad luck seemed to sidetrack him, was 35 when he came back to Arlington and made his own baseball history -- and his own history with the Yankees. And he came within a four-pitch walk to Charlie Culberson in the third inning of pitching a perfect game.

Kluber does not have the same fastball that he once had. But at a time when velocity, out of a pitcher’s hand and off hitters’ bats, so often dominates the narrative in baseball, Kluber showed you spin and control and artistry and even mystery as he dominated his old team all night long. He reminded everybody who needed reminding that there was a five-year stretch, a good long stretch for an ace in baseball, when he had been as dominant as any starter in the sport for Cleveland, with an 83-45 record and a 2.85 earned run average between 2014 and 2018.

After that things started to happen to Kluber. Finally there was the Sunday afternoon when something went wrong inside his pitching shoulder. When that happens there is never any certainty that a pitcher will regain his old form, especially a pitcher in his mid-30s. But now Kluber has made it all the way back from what Woodward, who was still in the home dugout on Wednesday night, had hoped was just “the little tightness behind his shoulder” that Kluber had talked about after pitching his one inning against the Rockies.

Kluber was something to see against the Rangers, just one day after Spencer Turnbull had pitched no-hitter No. 5 of the 2021 season for the Tigers. The last real drama of the night was the ball Dahl hit to Wade, a player normally playing in the infield for the Yankees running it down in right field as he ran hard to his left.

Kluber is now 4-0 in the last five games he has started. He has an earned run average of 1.78 in that time. He struck out nine Rangers, which makes it 36 strikeouts for him in his last 35 1/3 innings, and if it weren’t for Gerrit Cole, people would be calling him the ace of the Yankee staff. Another no-hitter in baseball. The latest proves that, oh yes, Corey Kluber is all the way back.