April 16, 2001

WINSTON SALEM, North Carolina -- Juan Nieves did it on his own over a decade ago, and the Winston-Salem pitching coach watched Sunday night as his team used four pitchers to no-hit Myrtle Beach in an 11-0 victory.
Delvis Lantigua, Brad Bohannon, Kyle Kane and Jeff Bajenaru combined on the no-hitter.
Making his first start of the season, Lantigua pitched the first six innings for Winston-Salem, fanning six without issuing a walk. The 21-year-old right hander, who had started the season 0-2, set down the side in order in the first, second, fifth, and sixth innings. He issued lead-off walks in the third and fourth.
Lantigua was relieved after six innings by Bohannon, who worked a perfect seventh inning. After Kane struck out the side in the eighth, Bajenaru worked around a lead-off walk in the ninth and induced a game-ending double play.
The performance impressed Nieves, who threw a no-hitter of 14 years ago to the day while pitching for the Milwaukee Brewers in a game against the Baltimore Orioles.
"It was great to see, great to observe it," said the 36-year-old Nieves.
Nieves recalled several similarities between his masterpiece and last night's performance.
"It was really bizarre, because everything happened the same way," he said. "Both games had a rain delay, started late, and it was the same kind of weather for both games."
Winston-Salem, the Class-A Carolina League affiliate of the Chicago White Sox, entered Sunday having dropped six of its first eight games. Myrtle Beach is the league's top team with a 6-3 record, despite a league-worst .205 team batting average.
The no-hitter was the Carolina League's first this season and Winston-Salem's first since Steve Trachsel accomplished the feat in 1991. It was the first combined no-hitter in Winston-Salem's 57-year Carolina League history, and the sixth no-hitter overall in the history of the franchise.
Copyright © 2001 SportsTicker Enterprises, L.P.

Barons win, but BP is talk of team

07/23/01
DOUG SEGREST
Birmingham News

The night belonged to a quartet of Birmingham Barons' pitchers. The day belonged to Brian Bohannan.
Sure, Bohannan contributed a scoreless, but otherwise pedestrian, inning of relief in a 3-2 victory against West Tenn Sunday night.
But it was Bohannan's prowess with a bat earlier in the day that had the Barons well, at least one Baron buzzing in the locker room.
"We learned yesterday the pitchers were going to be taking batting practice today," Bohannan said. "That meant wagers over who, if anyone, could hit one out of the Hoover Met."
With Barons' starting pitchers squaring off against the relievers, the guys in the bullpen pulled out a 1-0 victory, courtesy of the single, solitary yard-leaving clout.
Hit by ex-Arkansas Razorback Bohannan, of course.
"The worst possible guy won it," needled Josh Stewart, who picked up the win for the Barons in the real game that followed. "Now we've got to hear about it all season."
As for the game itself, the evening held promise of an arena football shootout with two starting pitchers bringing gaudy numbers into the game. West Tenn starter Chris Gissell sported a 2-9 record while Stewart's 10.02 ERA could go nowhere but down.
Instead, both pitched surprisingly well.
Stewart allowed the Diamond Jaxx just two runs during a brief fourth-inning uprising. Gissell blanked the Barons until the sixth, when Birmingham took the lead with a three spot.
But the Barons starter got big help from his bullpen as Bohannan tossed a scoreless seventh, Eric Weaver worked out of two-men-on-base trouble in the eighth and Edwin Almonte worked a flawless ninth for his Southern League-leading 25th save.
The Barons got all the offense needed from the heart of the order as Joe Borchard and clean-up man Chris Saunders combined for four hits.
The game was played before a crowd of 2,718 (tickets sold) at Hoover Metropolitan Stadium.
As for the home-run contest, it was witnessed only by a few.
While Bohannan went deep, Mitch Wylie nearly tied things for the starters. But his flirtation with a batting-practice home run ended at the wall with either an A) home-run saving catch by Bohannan or B) a casual warning-track out.
"I took it away," Bohannan said. "Maybe, just maybe, it might've hit the top of the wall. Wylie's been slacking off in the weight room."
The contest had consequences in the coaches' locker room, as well. Manager Nick Capra pitched to the starters while pitching coach Curt Hasler, the Barons' pitching MVP as an ace 11 years ago, gave up the dinger while throwing BP to the relievers.
"Hasler was throwing cutters and sliders," Capra said. "I was throwing the good stuff that no one could hit. I don't want to be quoted, but he's lost his stuff."

BARONS' NOTES The club gets today and Tuesday off before making its first, and only, trip to Chattanooga Wednesday.
The Barons went homerless for the fourth straight game Sunday, leaving the club with 90 for the season. Last year's first-half West Division champions hit only 94 for the entire summer.

DUDLEY DAWSON
ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

HOOVER, Ala. -- When former Springdale High and University of Arkansas baseball player Brad Bohannon arrived here back on June 7, there was a little less fanfare than when Michael Jordan first made the scene.
    Jordan, who "retired" from basketball to try baseball in 1994 and was a member of the Class AA Birmingham Barons during that season, had over 500 journalists from seven countries make the trek to see him play.
    Bohannon, a 6-3, 170-pounder who toiled on the mound for the Razorbacks for two years and was on the 1999 SEC championship team, was greeted only by the beat writer from the Birmingham News.
    "But I couldn't have been happier," Bohannan said Wednesday afternoon before the Barons' game with the Huntsville Stars. "You know when you make it to AA that you can see the majors from here."
    That idea was reinforced for Bohannon when former Arkansas teammate Dan Wright was called up by the Chicago White Sox from Birmingham last week.
    Wright would go on to win his first major league start on Wednesday, pitching five innings and leaving with a 6-4 lead in a game the White Sox eventually won 7-6 over Kansas City.
    Wright gave up 7 hits, walked 3 and fanned 3 in his outing.
    "He called me [Tuesday] and was a little nervous as you might expect," Bohannon said. "But I'm so happy for him, and it just shows that if you go out and do your work that the people will take notice.'
    Wright was 7-7 this season at Birmingham with a sparkling 2.89 ERA before getting the call-up to the parent club.
    "I'm hoping that will be me one day," Bohannon said. "It is what we all work for -- to get that call."
    Bohannan, a 28th-round draft pick, pitched his Rookie League season at Bristol (Tenn.) before getting a taste of Class A life in Winston-Salem, N.C. before the season ended.
    That is where he returned to start this season, but a stingy 1.70 ERA in 30 innings earned him a quick promotion in June.
    "I feel very fortunate to have the success that I have had so far and now I am just trying to work hard and be consistent throwing strikes," Bohannan said. "I hope to come back here next season and just keep working hard and moving up the ladder and if I do that, I might be the one just a phone call away."
    Birmingham Manager Nick Capra did not hesitant to throw Bohannon into the fire upon his arrival to the Hoover Met, the stadium in Birmingham's suburbs.
    He marched the right-hander out to the mound the first two nights, a baptism that resulted in two losses.
    "Each time you step up the ladder there is a learning process and part of it is learning what you can do with hitters and really learning how to pitch instead of just throw the ball," Bohannon said. "I've got some good instructors here and the main thing is that they are helping me develop all my pitches."
    Since those first two shaky appearances, Bohannon has been a workhorse and is 1-2 overall while appearing in 18 games covering a span of 27 1/3 innings.
    That includes a stint Monday where he retired the only batter he faced and four innings of relief work on Wednesday against the visiting Huntsville Stars.
    Ironically, Bohannon's current place of employment brings back a great memory from his collegiate days at Hoover Met when SEC regular-season champ Arkansas was playing in the league's postseason tournament.
    Arkansas Coach Norm DeBriyn had a depleted starting staff and called upon Bohannan to start in a losers' bracket game against Auburn.
    "It was my first start and I went out there and did a pretty good job of pitching and we got the win," Bohannon said. "During that tournament, I made a bet with a policeman that if we beat Auburn I would get to ride his motorcycle. When I got back here to pitch professionally, he remembered it and I have since rode his bike."
    Bohannon also gets to ride in the JordanCruiser, the plush team bus that Michael Jordan helped arrange for during his stint with the Barons.
    "It's getting a little old, but is a really nice bus and better than most teams at our level have," Bohannan said.
    Bohannon figures to be in Birmingham again next season, and that's just fine with him.
    "It's a great place to play, a pitcher's ballpark and we have really good fans," Bohannon said. "I am just going to keep working and keep dreaming about the call."
 

This article was published on Saturday, August 4, 2001