So it was Adam Maddox that took the mound tonight against the Nevada Griffons. Manager Matt Johnson obviously made a great choice by calling number 22 to the mound as he led the team to their first MINK league championship title. Oh Yeah, he also didn’t give up one stinking hit all night. Adam Maddox pitched a complete game no-hitter against the Nevada Griffons to clinch the MINK league championship!
Maddox was fantastic. He had hitters off balance all night. His breaking pitches were amazing. It seemed as if he got a lot of called strikes. This is an accomplishment because he was not receiving a generous strike zone. The umpire would not give Maddox the low strike. This caused a lot of long stares in at catcher TJ Daily for Maddox wondering why he couldn’t get that pitch called a strike.
Maddox had trouble with the small strike zone as he walked 6 batters throughout the game. To be as effective as he was on this night he had to be what pitching coaches call “effectively wild” anyway. The final strike of the game was high, in all fairness, it was high. Maddox had earned that call by being around the zone all night. If you don’t get the lower half of the strike zone you should get the high strike. This is an amazing accomplishment and I’m sure it has to be the greatest performance of the young pitcher’s career. I remember Maddox pitching a similar game last year actually. St. Joe was in the playoff heat with the Chillicothe Mudcats and the Mustangs had to sweep 3 straight games against the Mudcats. Maddox got the call in the first game and pitched what I think was a complete game shutout. This is all to the best of my recollection. Big kudos should also go out to Maddox’s catcher TJ Daily, the catcher never gets credit in a no-hitter but should.
Every no-hitter has a great play or two to attribute to the great game, it is almost inevitable. This game was no exception. The first great play came in I believe the top of the third inning. A high chopper was hit over the middle and second baseman Brent Seifert ranged all the way to the shortstop side of the bag to snag it and make a strong throw on time to first baseman Brock Chaffin. Getting to the ball was an accomplishment but the throw was something to behold. It was a long throw against his body and he delivered it to first base in time. The second great play came around the 6th inning. With a runner on 2nd base and 2 outs a low line drive was hit to center field and Cameron Bentley made a diving catch coming in on the ball. He caught the ball what must have been inches from the ground; in fact; I thought live that the ball had dropped. The second base umpire ruled it a catch and I’m sure it was the correct call.
On a personal note; it was simply amazing. I never thought I would EVER get to witness a legitimate no-hitter in person. I am a huge baseball fan and this is really one of the “holy grail” accomplishments. I was tremendously jealous when Mustangs pitcher Cody Cunningham threw a no-hitter earlier this year against the Omaha Diamond Spirit. The game was in Omaha so I obviously did not attend; but this time, I saw every pitch.
A big congratulations and thank you goes out to Adam Maddox.
I’m not sure who is starting for the Mustangs yet tonight but my guess is either Adam Maddox or Mustangs 2011 pitcher of the year Jayson Huett. Huett put together a great season to win the pitcher of the year award among stiff competition on the team. Adam Maddox, Andrew Polly, Cody Cunningham, Doug Shields, Ben Baker, Cody Lane, Kyle Hassna among others all had at least respectable years.
I think the pitching is the major difference for the team this year. Last year the team had Ryan Hook and Johnny Coy to bolster the offense but the pitching wasn’t near as good. The pitching is the reason this team has a great shot to make a run deep in the tournament in Wichita this year.
I just posted a 1999 Topps card of Jair Jurrjens yesterday and now I’m posting the same year of the guy who is 2nd in ERA in the NL, Jeff Karstens. The Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher is under the radar because…well…he’s a Pittsburgh Pirate. The Pirates are contending! This guy must be helping a lot. In his last 9 starts he has given up 2 or more earned runs 2 times. 2 times in 9 games? That’s insane. He posted an ERA just under 5.00 last year and now he is currently locked in with a 2.28 ERA. He must have figured something out this offseason. This great for the Pittsburgh Pirates and players like this are great for major league baseball as well.
Ben Baker is a fan favorite at Phil Welch stadium. He is one of only about 3 third year Mustangs. He played a lot of outfield in the past for St. Joe but this year has been primarily a pitcher. He has done very well on the mound too. Early in the year I saw him pitch when he started a game. That day he was a little wild and couldn’t control his walks. Later in the season he has really turned it on. He seems to be more effective as a reliever to me. He has a lot of deception to his delivery on the mound and that attributes to this. Once he faces a batter 2 or 3 times I think the deception is less effective. Baker is one of the cornerstones of the franchise right now and it will be difficult to imagine anyone else donning number 9 for the Mustangs.
Jair Jurrjens is leading the National League in both wins(12) and ERA(2.26) right now. Those are great numbers and should put him right in the running for the NL Cy Young award until Tim Lincecum starts to get hot. Jurrjens has been a huge reason why the Atlanta Braves are currently leading the NL wild card. It would be great to see Chipper Jones make the playoffs one last time. He will go down as a truely historic player so it would be good to see him on that kind of stage again.
Jurrjens gets the custom card of the day today simply because I don’t know who he is and don’t think I have seen him pitch. I am an AL guy so that hurts me seeing guys like this. Hopefully I will get to see him pitch in October.
Will Smith’s no-hitter on Tuesday made me dig out this card I made this spring training. At that time I really thought that either Everett Teaford or Will Smith were going to make the opening day roster.
So apparently tonight the Royals minor-league system attempted another no-hitter and it looks like this one is going to count. Will Smith threw 7 innings of no-hit ball tonight against Arkansas. Kevin Herrera finished the last two innings to complete the no-hitter. A big congratulations to Herrera and Smith.
According to Naturals outfielder Wil Myers’ twitter account there was a triple play as well.
This comes just a day after the Omaha Storm Chasers had a no-hitter taken away by the official scorer minutes after the game ended. Luis Mendoza pitched 8 no-hit innings for the second straight time Monday before giving up a hit in the 9th inning. It was initially ruled an error but later changed to a hit to take away the accomplishment from Mendoza.
1971 Topps is an amazing set. I have consistently called it my favorite set design of all time. That still holds up today. It was really the first year Topps used action shots on their cards and they had some great action shots too. This particular card is from the very first set I ever did as custom cards. I did a set that year and didn’t do anything with it. I never had a site to post it on so it just got buried on my hard drive. I should post some of the cards from this set because many of the players are long, long gone. I can’t remember the exact time frame but I believe it was right around the time the Royals traded Mark Teahan which would put it at the end of the 2009 season I think. It would be roughly a year and a half before I would dig the set out and I haven’t changed a thing on them since I made them. I recently added the signature on top of Soria’s card to be true to the original design but the picture and design was done a couple years ago. This Soria is likely one of the first 5 cards I ever made.
This was a tough one to re-create. It has an inset picture like 83-84 Topps, a very thin pinstripe around the baseball field shaped picture and name block, a two tone Topps logo, a rounded corner and a white glow around the edge of the picture. All this adds up to a difficult card to create. I cropped a picture that would have fit better on a sideways card to fit a portrait card. I think this makes the card really nice. You don’t see many cards cropped like this but I feel it really works. I think I will pull this template out and do a few cards with it because it looks so nice.
So it was Adam Maddox that took the mound tonight against the Nevada Griffons. Manager Matt Johnson obviously made a great choice by calling number 22 to the mound as he led the team to their first MINK league championship title. Oh Yeah, he also didn’t give up one stinking hit all night. Adam Maddox pitched a complete game no-hitter against the Nevada Griffons to clinch the MINK league championship!
A Hair Off Square 