Lamb broke the wall without giving up a hit
Springfield, MO – John Lamb broke down the Double-A wall in the Texas League tonight without giving up a hit. With sound defense and productive offense from his Northwest Arkansas Naturals teammates Lamb earned his first win since being promoted. I’m confident that Lamb took a big deep breath of relief, after the last out of the game.
Photo credit - Tony Piazza
Clint Robinson led the Naturals with a couple of home-runs and a triple to captured the club’s record when he blasted his 27th “big fly” of the season. Robinson knocked in 5 of the team total 6 runs for the evening during his record-breaking performance while playing first-base tonight.
The Naturals, Texas League affiliate of the Kansas City Royals, just missed another record performance from the mound. Rowdy Hardy came into the game for John Lamb with one out in the 7th inning and one base-runner on. Hardy continued the no-hit effort that Lamb had started all the way into the bottom of the 9th with two outs and a 3-2 count on Andrew Brown. Brown deposited the pitch over the fence to break up the no-hit bid. Hardy held on to get the last out and secure the win against the Springfield Cardinals, Double-A team of the St. Louis Cardinals.
John Lamb (1-1, 5.79, 9-7, 2.22) finished his work with 6.1 innings, 0 runs, 0 hits, 5 strike-outs and 3 walks. We listened to the game on the ESPN 92.1 The Ticket broadcast and fought back the tears of joy when we heard the warm round of applause coming form the Springfield, MO fans as my son left the game. The Missouri fans displayed their class and appreciation for a visiting pitcher and truly touched our hearts. Although, my wife is from St. Louis and not at all surprised by reaction from the fans, it still made her cry.
On the evening of John’s 26th start of his first full season in professional baseball, we are overwhelmed with satisfaction that he crashed though the Double-A wall with a solid effort to get his first Texas League win.
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James Lamb
Congrats to your son and thanks for the post.
Kris,
Thanks for the congrats…we are very happy to see him pick up his first TL win!
Congrats to your son and when he makes it to KC we won’t hold your wife’s hometown against her (too much 😉 ).
Gregg,
Thanks for the visit and nice comment. Glad to hear the wife won’t be thrown out of Kaufman…like she almost did when wearing John’s Royals jersey he received last year for his award when we went to Angels stadium earlier this year for a game against KC.
Congrats to John for a great game!
KCLoyal,
Thanks for the visit and the acknowledge of his efforts tonight. Big relief to see the results we know are in him with these new challenges at the Double-A level.
I was working tonight and listening to the game on my iPhone. It made my night go by so fast, it was awesome to hear Stephen Davis get more and more excited as the game progressed.
I noticed that John had a 90 pitch limit. You also mentioned that this was his 26th start of the season. Does John have an innings limit this year that you know of?
Congrats to your family and of course John on a fantastic game tonight!
Jeff
Jeff,
Thanks for the visit and comments. It was a great game to hear as a dad and I’m sure for any Royals fan still excited about the future of the organization.
No word on any cap for John’s innings but I’m sure there is a conservative plan in place.
Love it! A new beginning to build on…
(When did he start wearing 19??)
glp,
Yes, a good night at the office for John. He switched to 19 right after the first game in the TL wearing the throw back uniforms…not sure why but he has never really been too attached to any one number, as far as I can remember.
Congrats on the great game! The transition to AA has always been considered to be the toughest for pitchers, but hard work and dedication always pays off.
SBE,
Thanks for following the updates about John. He has worked very hard to make some adjustments and things worked out very well Thursday night. I am looking forward to the next outing back at Arvest!
Great work by your son, and it is truly refreshing to see his father as an advocate with a blog. It is not an easy league for pitchers; it is nice to see him having success. I’ll tell my client, Clint Robinson, to keep helping him out as much as possible!
Darren,
Thanks for the visit and kind comments. The Naturals are loaded with talent and it should be a lot of fun watching them during the playoffs. Clint is fun to watch hit. FYI…glad to see him wearing those gloves to protect the hands from pitchers like John that throw inside.
Awesome! Congrats and glad he came back strong from the sickness!
Ron,
Thanks again for following…we were all very excited for him and the Naturals from the left side of the country!
Congrats to John! I travelled from KC to Springfield to watch the game on wednesday and saw him doing his charts in the stands, said hi to him and got a picture with him after the game, Very nice young man.
Branson,
Glad you were able to connect with John for a picture. He has always been willing to connect with the fans and I hope that never changes during his career. Please forward the picture if it is not asking too much and maybe I can post it on the site!
Thanks for the visit and kind comments.