Lamet tosses 1st no-no for Poovey Farms

On the same night that Sardine City's Kwang Hyun Kim notched his league-leading 15th win (15-3) and Race Point's Griffin Canning lost his league-high 15th (0-15), Dinelson Lamet threw the first no-hitter for Poovey Farms, blanking Hopatcong 15-0 on Thursday.

It's the 25th no-hitter in DMBL history and the 18th complete game (there have been seven combined no-hitters). It's the first no-hitter in DMBL since Hopatcong's Stephen Strasburg did it in April 2020, becoming the only pitcher to have done it twice.

A former 1st round pick, Lamet struck out 9 and walked 2, retiring the final 19 batters. Of his 106 pitchers, 75 went for strikes (.708). "El Flaco" lowered his ERA to 2.68 over 127 2/3 innings in 21 starts, leaping into the league's top 10 at No. 7, behind Blue Ridge's Trevor Bauer (2.62) and Shane Bieber (2.70). Lamet (7-5) leads the Dairy Cows with 174 strikeouts on the year. The only blemishes on his line were two walks: one to Paul DeJong leading off the 2nd and another to Cavan Biggio with 2 out in the 3rd.

Hopatcong's Trevor Cahill probably won't soon forget his start either but for very different reasons. He suffered through a nightmare start, particularly a very wild 2nd inning. Cahill, who went 24-4 with Philly in 2013, gave up a two-out, two-run homer to Randall Grichuk, then just lost his cool. He walked the No. 9 hitter, J.T. Realmuto before yielding another long ball, this time to Xander Boegarts, for a 4-0 Poovey lead. Donovan Solano and Freddie Freeman both walked and Alec Bohm drove Solano home with a single to left for a 5-0 advantage.

Josh Donaldson, who led off the inning flying out to center, walked to load the bases -- Cahill's 4th of the inning and the first of what would be 6 consecutive walks. By the time Solano came to the plate again and grounded out to end the inning, Cahill had staked the Dairy Cows to a 10-0 lead after 2 innings. When it was all over, Cahill (2-13) threw 104 pitches (only 43 for strikes, .413) over 2 1/3 innings, yielding 5 hits, 10 earned runs and 10 walks, with 3 strikeouts.

Poovey won its 8th in a row, improving to 57-44 and staying in the playoff hunt, 3 GB of No. 6 Blue Ridge and 7 GB of El Paso in the Ryan Division.

Initially selected by El Paso in the 2nd round (26th overall) of the 2018 draft, Lamet struggled through a rookie campaign, going 1-12 in 18 starts with a 6.50 ERA for a 75-87 Chihuahuas team. The 29-year-old Dominican was chosen 10th overall in the 2020 draft by the Dairy Cows, after San Francisco tapped SP Rich Hill and ahead of Marietta's selection of CF Bryan Reynolds. He was the 6th of 7th starting pitchers selected in the 1st round that year (Max Fried, El Paso, 5h; Aaron Civale, Sardine City, 7th; Zac Gallen, Blue Ridge, 8th; Hill, 9th, and John Means, Hillsborough, 16th).