That's A No-No

TigerBlog saw the video of the ball as it left the bat and thought immediately that he was glad that he wasn't the official scorer. 

Then he saw the end of the play and thought "Yup. Error."

He's talking about the craziness that was the game Saturday between the Double-A Chattanooga Lookouts (the Reds organization) and the Rocket City Trash Pandas (outside of Huntsville, Ala., and an affiliate of the Los Angeles Angels). 

Actually, before he gets into what happened, TigerBlog will give you a quick quiz: Which of the following is not an actual nickname for a Major League affiliate Minor League Baseball team:

A) Yard Goats
B) Mighty Mussels
C) Rumble Ponies
D) Jumbo Shrimp
E) Lugnuts

TB will have the answer at the end.

Anyway, the game between the Lookouts and Trash Pandas was something rather unique. Chattanooga won the game 7-5, which doesn't seem like a big deal, until you realize that Chattanooga also got no-hit. 

Here's something you won't see too often:

The seven runs all came in the same inning. Who needs a hit when you can get: five walks, two hit batters, a wild pitch and an error by the centerfielder on the only ball that was actually put in play. In fact, it was a pretty solid shot, and the centerfielder had been playing in. When TB saw it, he thought that the official scorer might have been put into a tough spot on this one, until he saw the outfielder circle under it and just drop it.

By the way, the pitch before was on an 0-2 count and barely, if at all, missed the outside corner. Had it been called a strike (and way worse pitches have been called strikes), then Chattanooga would have trailed 3-1. 

If you want advice on the proper way to no-hit a team, perhaps the Trash Pandas should ask Princeton softball pitcher Alexis Laudenslager. She seems to have it down pat.

Laudenslager no-hit Columbia 8-0 Sunday afternoon, giving her an amazing third no-hitter this year and five no-hitters for her career. Both of those are now Princeton records, and Princeton softball has had some great, great pitchers through the years.

For the year, Laudenslager has now allowed 68 hits in 86 innings, with 117 strikeouts and 37 walks. Within the league, she is 7-1 and has allowed 20 hits in 43 innings, with 59 strikeouts, 21 walks, a .95 WHIP and a 0.81 ERA.

By the way, her 117 strikeouts lead the league. The next-best total? That would be 68.

It would appear that she is well on the way to her second straight Ivy League Pitcher of the Year and first-team All-Ivy League honors.

Laudenslager has helped Princeton to a 10-2 record in the Ivy League with three more league weekends to go (at Cornell this weekend, followed by a home series against Harvard and a trip to Dartmouth). The Tigers are in first place, one game ahead of the Crimson, and they're closing in on one of the four spots for the first four-team Ivy League tournament. 

Princeton is one game up on Harvard, who is 9-3. After that, Yale, Dartmouth, Columbia and Cornell all have five or six losses, with Brown with seven and Penn with 11. Not everyone has played the same number of games to date.

The baseball team dropped two of three against Penn this weekend, but the Tigers are still over .500 at 5-4, though the Ivy season is not yet at the halfway point. As is the case in softball, this year will feature a four-team tournament instead of a championship series between the top two teams (or before that, the two division winners).

Princeton has four Ivy weekends left, meaning three games against Columbia (this weekend at home) and then at Cornell, at Yale and home against Brown.

The league standings have Columbia and Harvard tied for first at 7-2, followed by 6-3 Penn and 5-4 Princeton. From there, you have Yale and Brown at 4-5, Cornell at 3-6 and Dartmouth at 0-9. In other words, Princeton is as close to first as it is to seventh.

Oh, and the answer to the nickname question: It was a trick question. They all are actual nicknames.