Francis is lights out for Danville against Pulaski

By Jason Wolf

Published: July 22, 2008

Ross David Francis struck out a jaw-dropping 16 of the 18 batters he faced in six innings, the most for a Danville Braves pitcher since at least the turn of the century, according to records kept by the club.

The no-hit performance came in a rain-delayed game against the East Division-leading Pulaski Mariners — the hottest hitting team in the Appalachian League — and eclipsed the previous recorded D-Braves high of 15 strikeouts set by Matt Merricks against the Pulaski Rangers on Aug. 21, 2001. The D-Braves do not have team records for individual performances pre-dating the 2000 season.

Danville’s game against Pulaski on Tuesday at Dan Daniel Park was delayed by rain in the top of the seventh inning with Danville leading 1-0 and was called after about an hour. Francis, a righty, had already been pulled from the game by the time it was stopped. The stadium’s power eventually went out amid torrential downpours — with handfuls of fans still in the stands.

“It was a dominating performance by Francis, an outstanding performance. He was in complete command of the game. His fastball was overpowering. His curveball had good bite on it,” D-Braves manager Paul Runge said. “It was probably the best pitching performance of the year by any pitcher in the Appy League. Pulaski has a heck of a ball club, and they were just swinging through everything he threw up there.”

Pulaski, with a team batting average of .284, is the best hitting team in the league.

Francis, a 12th round pick in this summer’s draft, started the season as a relief pitcher and broke his previous career high of six strikeouts in the third inning. He struck out the side in the first, struck out two in the second, three more in the third and four in the fourth inning, when one batter reached base after striking out on a wild pitch. Francis returned to strike out one in the fifth and put down the side with three more strikeouts in the sixth before being pulled in favor of Matthew Small, who pitched to one batter in the seventh before the rain delay.

“It was pretty crazy. I didn’t think I’d get a no-hitter because I was coming out after the sixth, but then it started raining. I’m pretty excited about that,” Francis said. “I really didn’t have any off-speed pitches until about the fourth inning. I couldn’t control it at all, but my fastball was moving a lot so that helped me out.”

“I didn’t notice how many I had until I got the four in the fourth and had 12 through four innings. I started counting after that.”

Francis’ personal-best is 17 strikeouts in a game, which he accomplished as a 15-year-old playing travel ball.

Eight strikeouts by one pitcher was this year’s season high for the D-Braves, a mark shared by Angelo Paulino and Casey Hodges — who own two of the top ERAs in the league. Hodges, in fact, owns the best ERA in the league.

The 6-foot-2, 190-pound Francis eclipsed their mark in the third inning. He reached double-digit strikeouts by the fourth inning, when every batter in the Pulaski lineup had struck out at least once.

Francis was 1-1 as a starter with a team-low 0.75 ERA before Tuesday’s contest, having struck out 12 and walked just one. He came into Tuesday’s contest with a 2-1 record and a 2.04 ERA, having appeared in 17.2 innings spanning four games. In total, he had surrendered nine hits, seven runs (four earned), walked three and struck out 19 this season.

In his last start against Princeton on Friday, Francis pitched a season-high seven innings, allowing three hits and one earned run in Danville’s 4-2 victory.

Francis, a 20-year-old from Mississauga, Ontario, attended Walters State (Tenn.) Community College, where he helped lead the Senators to a 55-9 record and a berth in the Junior College World Series earlier this year.

He was on the D-Braves roster at the beginning of the season, but was sent down for conditioning at the Gulf Coast League Braves’ facility until his work visa was processed.

The minor league record for strikeouts by one pitcher in a game belongs Ron Necciai, who struck out 27 in nine innings in an Appalachian League game between the Bristol Twins and Welsh Miners on May 13, 1952.

Contact Jason Wolf at or (434) 791-7996.

HOW THEY SCORED

BOTTOM OF THE THIRD: Brooks Mohr pitching. Kuyaunnis Miles grounds out to short. Joel Campusano walks. Shayne Moody singles to right-center field, advancing Campusano to third. Campusano scores and Moody advances to third on a wild pitch. Chris Shehan grounds out to third. Gerardo Rodriguez grounds out to short. Danville 1, Pulaski 0

NEWS & NOTES

RHP Brandon Beachey, who played college ball at Indiana Wesleyan, was added to the Danville Braves roster. He signed as a free agent from the Woodstock Bandits of the Valley Baseball League, an NCAA-sanctioned wooden-bat league in the Shenandoah Valley. Beachey appeared in 18 games as a reliever for the Bandits this season, posting a 1-3 record and a 2.89 ERA. He pitched 18 2-3 innings, surrendering 14 hits and six earned runs, striking out 33 and walking seven. … Jon Gilmore’s leadoff double in the fourth inning was his 16th this season, extending his Appalachian League leading total. … The blackout at Dan Daniel Park was the second this season. A game against Bluefield on July 9 never started and the teams played a doubleheader the next day. The nightcap of that doubleheader was the game where Casey Hodges matched Angelo Paulino’s season-high by striking out eight in a complete-game shutout.