3 Clinton pitchers combine to no-hit Kernels

CEDAR RAPIDS - A kid with the nickname 'The Brazilian Tornado” blew away the Cedar Rapids Kernels last night.

That's more in the figurative sense. Daniel Missaki doesn't have a fastball that lights up radar guns or anything.

But the 19-year-old has an assortment of pitches, and they were plenty good enough to provide the lion's share of a combined no-hitter for the Clinton LumberKings, 2-0, before 3,068 fans at Veterans Memorial Stadium that had nary a thing to cheer about. Unless you like great pitching, of course.

Missaki retired the first 20 Kernels, walking Trey Vavra on a 3-2 pitch with two outs in the seventh inning. He got one more out and was pulled, despite a pitch count just in the 70s.

Kody Kerski and Troy Scott finished up Clinton's first no-no since the late Victor Sanchez had one in 2013. It was the franchise's 23rd no-hitter.

'Usually I throw my changeup a lot, but I didn't really have it (tonight),” said Missaki, who struck out seven. 'My last start, I had a little pain in my (ring) finger, so that makes me think more on how to get out the hitters. I worked more with my fastball down in the zone.”

'He threw all of his pitches for strikes,” said Clinton Manager Scott Steinmann. 'He put it wherever he wanted to. For a 19-year-old, I was really impressed with the way he handled himself out there. He's one of our bright-future, up-and-coming guys.”

Missaki, a righty, was signed as an international free agent in 2012 out of Brazil. He was born in Japan.

Nothing about his first four starts this season suggested a night like this, as he came in 0-1 with a 4.84 earned run average. Despite a pitch count in the 70s, Steinmann took out Missaki after seven innings.

'It was because of my future,” Missaki said. 'It's early in the season, so they don't want me to get hurt.”

'He looked like he was getting a little tired at the end there,” Steinmann said. 'He hasn't gone seven innings this season. That, and the stress of the situation was taxing ... It's early in the season, he's young, we really want to protect him, like all of our guys. So we got him out of there.”

This was the low point offensively in a futile week-long stretch for the Kernels (12-10), who got seven innings of terrific starting pitching themselves by Stephen Gonsalves. Cedar Rapids has scored seven runs total in its last seven games and has a team batting average of .166 in that stretch.

And its best offensive player, outfielder Zach Granite, was promoted to high-Class A Fort Myers on Friday afternoon. Catcher J.J. Fernandez was activated from the disabled list to take his spot on the active roster.

'We're making a lot of pitchers look good lately,” said Manager Jake Mauer. 'Easy outs, non-competitive at-bats. We struck out 10 times tonight, and that's too many. Our only two baserunners were on walks. We're getting beat by fastballs. There wasn't anything real scary there (from Missaki), did you think? He had good command for a young guy. Really good command, but he wasn't overpowering.”

The teams play Game 2 of their three-game series Saturday night at 6:35.

Above is a short video interview with Missaki. Click on the 'Box” icon at the top of this page to look at the official game boxscore.

l Comments: (319) 398-8259; jeff.johnson@thegazette.com