By Yours Truly
https://throneberryfields.blogspot.com/2018/07/from-brain-surgery-to-no-hit-bid.html
Daniel Poncedeleon, author of
the greatest single-game baseball
comeback from a life-threatening
brain injury . . .School children of my generation knew the name Juan Ponce de Leon as handily as they knew the names of John, Paul, George, and Ringo. School children today may know the name Daniel Poncedeleon (and possibly the Beatles) a little more readily than that of the Spaniard who discovered Florida.
Ponce de Leon the explorer neither sought the fountain of youth as the myth held so long, nor did he undergo surgery for a life-threatening brain injury one year and pitch seven no-hit innings in his first major league start the next. The explorer settled for a Spanish knighthood, reinstatement as Puerto Rico's governor, and death from injuries incurred when Florida's native Colusa tribe decided a Spanish colony was not to their taste.
Poncedeleon the righthanded pitcher is a graduate of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, which just so happens to be in Florida, and he's the first of the institution's graduates to become a major league baseball player. And that's after doing time at four colleges total and going four times in the major league draft before he finally signed with the Cardinals four years ago.
Last March, pitching for Memphis (AAA) against the Iowa Cubs, Poncedeleon took a line drive from Cubs prospect Victor Caratini off his right temple. His surgery successful, he took to wearing a carbon fiber insert inside his cap. On Monday, in full but tastefully cropped beard and goggles, he squared off against the Reds. His evening ended only when the Cardinals' interim manager Mike Shildt decided seven innings and a hundred pitches was quite enough despite the no-hitter in the making. The Reds probably saw more than enough of him for the night, too.
Poncedeleon's deceptive, slow windup kept them far from balanced in handling a late-riding four-seam fastball, a slider that traveled more like a cut fastball, and a late-moving changeup that took a swan dive down past the low corners just in time for Reds bats to either miss or foul weakly. The resurrected pitcher who'd surrendered a mere 66 hits in 92 AAA innings left the game with the fourth-longest expansion era no-hit bid premiere. The three ahead of him?
*
Billy Rohr. 1967. A Red Sox rookie, Rohr was sent to the mound to face the Yankees' injury-faded Hall of Famer Whitey Ford on Opening Day in Yankee Stadium. Elston Howard wrecked the no-no with two out in the bottom of the ninth, dumping a quail over second base into short right---and that was after Hall of Famer Carl Yastrzemski saved the no-no with a running, diving catch of Tom Tresh's leadoff drive to left. Rohr won one more game then disappeared almost completely; he's long since become a malpractise attorney.
*
Ross Stripling. 2016. Effective in last year's World Series out of the Dodgers' bullpen, Stripling's major league premiere against the Giants in 2016 saw him take a no-hitter two-thirds into the eighth inning before manager Dave Roberts lifted him for Chris Hatcher. Giants rookie Trevor Brown promptly smashed a two-run homer to tie a game the Giants would win when Brandon Crawford ended it with a home run.
*
Rudy May. 1965. Remembered best for two useful stints with the Yankees in the 1970s and early 1980s, and perhaps a little for going to the Angels in the deal that made a Phillie out of colourful, controversial lefthander Bo Belinsky. May's first major league start was as an Angel facing the Tigers and Denny McLain. He pitched a third of an inning less worth of no-hit ball than Stripling, ruined when Jake Wood doubled with one out in the bottom of the seventh. The Tigers tied later in the inning on an infield error and won in extra innings; Bob Lee took the loss.
Poncedeleon's masterpiece was laid to waste when pinch hitter Phillip Ervin singled off reliever Jordan Hicks with one out in the eighth. Bud Norris came in for the ninth and surrendered a solo bomb to Eduardo Suarez, tying the game at one, before Norris loaded the pads with a pair of base hits and a walk and another pinch hitter, former Met Dilson Herrera (who went to the Reds with Matt Harvey this year), singled to end the game with a 2-1 Reds win.
That's the same Bud Norris who designated himself as the bullpen police, including and especially against rookie Hicks, but ultimately helped hammer Mike Matheny's coffin closed for his trouble.
Poncedelon didn't mind being lifted after seven, by the way. "First of all," he told reporters after the game, "I'm a liability at the plate. Struck out twice looking. One run game. Needed a big at-bat. One hundred percent understand. Plus I was one hundred something pitches in."
He'd already accomplished something nobody could take away from him. For a 26-year-old whose life might have ended over a year earlier on a liner off his head, and who probably felt extremely blessed that he'd recovered well enough to make the Cardinals' big-league spring camp in the first place this year, it may yet prove the highlight of his career no matter where it goes from here.
First, it's going back to Memphis, back to where the Cardinals sent him today, as they called up lefthander Austin Gomer to face the Reds tonight. Poncedeleon has a 2.15 ERA for Memphis this year, not to mention a 9-2 record and 103 strikeouts in 92 innings. His last Memphis start was a complete game one-hit shutout.
Shildt says Poncedeleon earned the chance to be a Cardinals starter. He earned a lot more than that with his Monday jewel. Sending him back down today seems a funny way to prove it for now. Maybe the Cardinals think he'll find what his namesake never actually tried to find, which is odd to say about a 26-year-old but perfectly aligned to the current Cardinals dissembling.
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