Mankato, Minn. – After an edge-of-your-seat ninth inning, Tim Griffin completed the first no-hitter in Mankato MoonDogs history. Griffin struck out 10 batters and walked four to record the milestone no-no, as he led the MoonDogs to a 6-0 victory over the St. Cloud River Bats at Franklin Rogers Park Monday night.<\/p>\n
Griffin (Rollins), an All-Star this season, faced the minimum in five innings, and did not allow a runner past second base. All of his strikeouts were of the swinging variety, as he recorded two Ks in four separate innings.<\/p>\n
The ninth inning saw Danny Oh (Cal) reach on a one-out error to set up an epic battle with Zac Richard (Florida Gulf Coast). Richard had a nine-pitch at-bat, fouling off six, before hitting a soft groundball to third. The double play went Cody Fick (Evansville) to AJ Pettersen (Minnesota) to Evan Kohli (Illinois St.) at first to finish the no-no for Griffin.<\/p>\n
Griffin moved to 4-2 on the season and lowered his earned run average to 1.64 on the summer. Matt Summers (UC Irvine) walked eight in just over four and one-thirds innings to fall to 1-1.<\/p>\n
The MoonDogs had several offensive contributors, as Kyle Knudson (Minnesota), Brenden Webb (Palomar CC) and Ryan Durant (Iowa) all recorded two hits. Webb had a double, triple and two RBI while Pettersen also added two RBI and a stolen base.<\/p>\n
The MoonDogs would score all the runs they would need in the first via a Pettersen RBI groundout and Webb\u2019s RBI triple. With the bases loaded in the second, Pettersen drew a bases loaded walk to make it a 3-0 ballgame.<\/p>\n
The MoonDogs put it well out of reach in the sixth with a three-run outburst. After a Fick walk to start the inning, KC Serna (Oregon) tripled him in to make it 4-0. Another walk and a hit batsman preceded a Jimmy Patterson (Arizona St.) RBI walk to bring in the fifth MoonDog run. The inning ended after Webb\u2019s RBI double turned into an unconventional 8-4-2-5 double play as the MoonDogs capped off the scoring with a 6-0 lead.<\/p>\n
The no-hitter was the 12th in Northwoods League history and fourth this season. The two teams will meet again tomorrow at the Frank. First pitch will be at 7:05 p.m. as the MoonDogs will go for their third straight win; their first such of the second half. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mankato, Minn. – After an edge-of-your-seat ninth inning, Tim Griffin completed the first no-hitter in Mankato MoonDogs history. Griffin struck […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-team-news"],"yoast_head":"\n