Stop me if you’ve seen this story before, but the Cincinnati Reds (farm system) were involved in a no-hitter where the team that was no-hit won the baseball game. On Saturday the Reds Double-A affiliate, the Chattanooga Lookouts played a doubleheader against the Rocket City Trash Pandas – the Double-A affiliate of the Los Angeles Angels. In the minor leagues doubleheader games are 7-inning affairs.
Rocket City was leading 3-0 entering the top of the 7th inning, needing just three outs to complete the no-hitter. Starting pitcher Coleman Crow was lifted after he fired off 6.0 innings of no-hit ball in his first start of the year for the Trash Pandas. Ben Joyce, the Angels 3rd round pick out of Tennessee in 2022 entered to close out the game. Or at least that was the hope.
Joyce walked the first two batters of the inning before getting a pop up to second base for the first out of the inning. A third walk of the inning followed to load the bases. Joyce, who can throw 100+ MPH, struck out the next batter on three pitches. But then he walked in a run on four pitches. The shutout was gone, but the no-hitter was still going and Rocket City still had a 3-1 lead.
Four pitches later that lead was gone. Jose Torres hit a deep fly ball to center that was just short of the warning track. Center fielder Jeremiah Jackson had to run quite a way to get under the ball, but he did. But as he went to catch the ball it clanked off of his glove for a 3-run error and Chattanooga took a 4-3 lead and Torres was on second base.
The Trash Pandas then went to the bullpen again. The no-hitter was still there, but the team was now behind in the game. As bad as that was it was just the start because things got worse. New pitcher Eric Torres came into the game and hit the first three batters he saw, bringing in a run. Allan Cerda avoided behind hit by a pitch and drew an RBI walk. Then with Nick Quintana at the plate a wild pitch brought in the 7th run of the inning. He would also then get hit by a pitch to load the bases once again, but mercifully for Rocket City the top of the inning came to an end when the next batter struck out.
No hits in the inning, but five walks, four hit batters, a wild pitch, and an error led to seven runs for Chattanooga. The Lookouts made it interesting despite a 7-3 lead entering the bottom half of the final inning. Stevie Branch gave up two runs and had two more runners on the bases with just one out before Pedro Garcia was called in from the bullpen. He came on and struck out both batters he saw to complete the victory in the first game of the doubleheader. The Lookouts would lose game two and had just one hit – a Rece Hinds leadoff double in the second inning.
Baseball Reference has a database of all the known no-hitters in the minor leagues dating back to 1900. There are nearly 4600 of them. Most of them have a final score available for them. Chattanooga’s 7-5 win while being no-hit was only the second time a team had scored at least 7 runs in a game in which they also had no hits. The other team was the Lockport Reds, who defeated Wellsville 7-4 on August 31st of 1948 while not recording a hit. Cincinnati is just destined to be involved in these kinds of games.
Wow. Not often do you see a professional team act like a Little League team. Anyone who has coached or have kids in Little League has seen games like that before. It has to be at least a little embarrassing for Rocket City. Probably not a part of history they want to be remembered for. lol The Lookouts split the two games with just one hit.
This week in baseball history. 🙂
I wonder if this is part of a new hitting philosophy and development program.
I’m wondering if the Reds will make a move to acquire Torres and Joyce somewhere down the line. They seem like perfect candidates for the Reds bullpen a couple of years down the road.
Just FYI, the video link above is unwatchable – it goes the same 30 second ad every 6 seconds of action.
You’d hope with all of the prospects this team has acquired, they won’t be going two games with only one hit combined on offense very often. Atleast they are patient I guess?