ChThere was no dogpile on the mound.
No players sprinted from the dugout after the final strike. No catcher leaped into the pitcher’s arms. No one grabbed the baseball and held it aloft as the rest of the team poured onto the field.
When Camden Minacci struck out Caleb Bonemer to finish an 8-0 Rocket City victory Wednesday night at Regions Field, the Trash Pandas celebrated exactly what they believed they had accomplished: an important win in the middle of a playoff race.
Then they went back to the clubhouse.
Minacci headed toward the weight room. His teammates began changing out of their uniforms. Manager Joe Kruzel waited for the final box score, as managers do after every game.
Only then did Wednesday night change.
The single credited to Birmingham’s Dylan Campbell leading off the seventh inning had been changed to an error on shortstop Arjun Nimmala. Austin Gordon had actually completed seven no-hit innings. Lucas Mahlstedt had kept it going through the eighth. Minacci had finished it in the ninth.
Without knowing it, the Rocket City Trash Pandas had just thrown the third no-hitter in franchise history.
Minacci was not even in the room when the announcement began.
“I was actually in the weight room when they announced it, and I thought that somebody was getting promoted or something like that,” Minacci said. “Then I came back in and guys were giving high fives, and then realized that it was a no-hitter.”
For a team that has spent much of the summer grinding through close games, roster changes, promotions and the daily uncertainty of Minor League Baseball, perhaps there could not have been a more fitting way to make history.
They did the work first.
They found out what it meant later.
And then, together, they celebrated.
“Being on this team is something special,” Gordon said. “I’m happy to come to the field every single day, and you don’t always get to be a part of a team like that. It’s just a really good group of guys, and it’s a great team to be a part of.”
IT STARTED WITH GORDON
Long before anyone knew there would be a scoring change, Gordon was creating the possibility of something memorable.
The right-hander entered Wednesday on the best run of his professional career. He had won six consecutive starts. His command had sharpened. His tempo had improved. His confidence had grown.
Against a Birmingham club that had entered the night on a seven-game winning streak, Gordon looked in complete control.
The first 18 Barons came to the plate.
All 18 were retired.
Through six innings, Gordon was perfect.
He did it efficiently, too, working quickly enough that those around him began recognizing what was happening almost before there was time to think about it.
“I think probably about the fourth inning, I’m looking and going, there’s a possibility of it happening,” pitching coach Doug Henry said. “He’s just dominating. He’s putting the ball where he wants to, and he’s doing whatever he wants to.”
Gordon struck out eight over seven innings, walked nobody and threw 57 of his 78 pitches for strikes. He faced only 22 hitters, one above the minimum.
But Gordon said the numbers were the product of a much simpler focus.
One pitch.
Then the next one.
“It kind of came down to execution,” Gordon said. “Me and Flo, we had a plan, and we executed it pretty well. Nothing’s really going through my head. Just keep attacking, keep on the gas pedal and just keep executing pitches.”
“Flo” was 20-year-old catcher Juan Flores, whose fingerprints were all over the night even if his name did not appear beside Gordon, Mahlstedt and Minacci in the pitching line.
Gordon and Flores had familiarity on their side. They played together last season at the Angels High-A affiliate, Tri-City, and Gordon trusted his catcher enough to follow him into an area of his arsenal he had used less frequently earlier this year.
The curveball.
Gordon told Flores before the game that he had not thrown many of them this season.
Flores responded by calling them.
A lot of them.
“I really like the game that he called,” Gordon said. “He called a great game.”
The pair also leaned on Gordon’s changeup, a pitch he said had felt especially good throughout the week and again during his pregame work.
It was a collaboration — pitcher and catcher adjusting together, trusting each other and attacking a Birmingham lineup that never seemed to find an answer.
Kruzel believes that part of Flores’ game can easily go unnoticed.
“A lot of people just see the results of the game when they go out there on the days that they catch,” Kruzel said. “But the fact of all the work and research they do to put a plan together, and then having the discipline and the patience to allow that plan to work out through the game, it’s not something you just go out there and, by the seat of your pants, call this pitch or call that pitch.”
Flores also contributed at the plate, launching a two-run home run in the third inning as Rocket City built a 7-0 lead. The Trash Pandas eventually finished with 15 hits and eight runs, giving their pitching staff plenty of breathing room.
Behind Gordon, the defense did its part.
Anthony Scull made a diving catch in center. Nick Rodríguez made plays behind him.
Then came the seventh.
THE “HIT”
Campbell led off the inning and sent a ball toward Nimmala at shortstop.
It got through.
The scoreboard flashed a hit.
Perfect game gone.
No-hitter gone.
Or so everyone thought.
Gordon’s reaction may have been as impressive as everything that preceded it.
Nothing changed.
“Really, nothing,” Gordon said of what went through his mind. “I thought I executed a pitch. It wasn’t executed to where I exactly wanted it to be. We wanted to go up and in and just caught a little bit too much plate. But I thought I got him off the barrel just enough. At the same time, nothing’s going through my head. Everyone in this dugout has full belief in Arjun. It’s baseball.”
Gordon retired the next three hitters.
No frustration.
No unraveling.
No lingering over what could have been.
He simply went back to pitching.
For Kruzel, that response said as much about Gordon’s performance as the zero eventually restored to the hit column.
“The best part about that whole thing was when they put up the hit, it didn’t affect him,” Kruzel said. “We went out and got the next three guys, finished the inning, pitched extremely well. The fact of the matter was, he didn’t let that affect him.”
Gordon wanted to keep going.
His pitch count remained low, and after 18 straight outs followed by three more after Campbell reached, the competitor in him naturally wanted another inning.
So Gordon handed the baseball to the bullpen.
Mahlstedt took the eighth.
Three days earlier, he had entered behind Eybersson Polanco after Polanco carried a perfect game through five innings against Biloxi.
That one did not survive.
Wednesday was different because Mahlstedt looked at the scoreboard and saw a hit.
There was no no-hitter to protect. At least he did not think there was.
“I think it was definitely different than knowing that it was on the board,” Mahlstedt said. “Probably does alleviate some pressure, but the goal is still the same.”
He retired all three hitters in the eighth, striking out Ryan Burrowes along the way.
Mahlstedt had experienced a combined no-hitter before. At Clemson in 2025, he recorded the final out of a combined no-hitter against Pittsburgh.
This one felt different.
It was professional baseball. It was part of a playoff race. And, perhaps most unusually, none of the pitchers entered the final innings carrying the pressure normally attached to a no-hitter.
Minacci certainly did not.
He had been on the other side of a no-hitter before.
Never this side.
When he entered for the ninth, his goal was simply to close an 8-0 victory.
He issued a one-out walk to Samuel Zavala before retiring Campbell on a fielder’s choice. Bonemer came to the plate with two outs.
Minacci struck him out.
Game over.
No celebration beyond the usual handshakes.
No idea that history had just been completed.
THE BOX SCORE ARRIVES
Kruzel did not initiate a scoring appeal.
Neither did Henry.
The Trash Pandas had accepted the original ruling and moved on.
But before delivering the final box score, the official scorer revisited the Campbell play.
According to Kruzel, Birmingham manager Pat Leyland, son of former major league manager Jim Leyland, and Campbell were consulted.
Both believed the play should have been an error.
The ruling was changed.
The lone Birmingham hit disappeared.
Kruzel gathered his staff.
Then he handed the moment to Henry.
“Joe came in and told me that they changed it to an error,” Henry said. “I asked Joe, ‘Did you tell them?’ He goes, ‘No, you go ahead.’”
There was one delicate part.
The error now belonged to Nimmala.
Henry wanted to make sure the young shortstop understood that the announcement was not about blaming him.
“I said, ‘Nemo, don’t take this personal, but they called that an error,’” Henry recalled. “It took a second for it to sink in. ‘You know what that means? We got a no-hitter tonight.’ And they went nuts.”
The clubhouse erupted.
“You would’ve thought there was fireworks going on or something,” Kruzel said. “They got all excited, jumping around. And they should. They should, because that’s quite a feat. It doesn’t happen very often.”
The history suddenly belonged to them.
Gordon.
Mahlstedt.
Minacci.
Flores.
The defense behind them.
Everyone who had spent the summer sharing that clubhouse.
Rocket City’s first no-hitter came on Sept. 3, 2022, when Chase Silseth, Luke Murphy and Eric Torres combined in an 8-0 victory over Biloxi. The second came on April 8, 2023, when Coleman Crow, Ben Joyce and Torres combined to no-hit Chattanooga in a 7-5 loss that remains one of the most bizarre games in Minor League Baseball history.
Wednesday became the third — and the first in more than three years.
For Mahlstedt, the delayed realization somehow made it even more memorable.
“We didn’t find out until after the game,” Mahlstedt said. “We didn’t get to celebrate on the field or anything, but we did get to do it here in the locker room.”
BACK TO WORK
The celebration did not last forever.
It could not.
The next afternoon, Gordon was back on the field during batting practice performing his normal post-start duties.
Kruzel saw him working and laughed.
One night after throwing seven no-hit innings, Gordon was handling the bucket, collecting the baseballs hit into the outfield.
It reminded Kruzel of his own coa days.
After winning a college conference championship in 2005, Kruzel returned home, where his father asked him to take out the garbage.
Championship or not, chores remained.
So did Gordon’s.
Kruzel joked with him about the similarity.
Throw a no-hitter one night.
Carry the bucket the next.
For Kruzel, that may have captured this group better than any statistic could.
“The significance of it is the best part about the whole thing is the resemblance of this team,” Kruzel said. “You sit there and you celebrate the moment. And this is what this team’s done all year.”
Wednesday’s victory had mattered even before anyone knew it was historic. Rocket City entered the night after losing the series opener, while Birmingham had won seven straight. The 8-0 victory moved the Trash Pandas back into first place in the Southern League North Division second-half race.
There would be another game Thursday.
And another Friday.
Then Saturday.
That is life in the Minor Leagues.
Players get promoted. Players get traded. Some nights end with walk-offs. Others end with celebrations. Every once in a while, three pitchers combine on a no-hitter and do not realize it until they are already inside the clubhouse.
Then everyone comes back the next afternoon.
“I don’t know when they walk in the clubhouse before the day starts whether we won or lost last night,” Kruzel said. “That’s the best part about it. They just go about their business and go out and compete their tails off for 27 outs every night, from pitch one to the last pitch of the game. And then if we win, we celebrate. And then the next day, we come in, and we do it all over again.”
Minacci will remember watching Gordon dominate.
Mahlstedt will remember learning after the fact that his perfect eighth inning had been part of history.
Henry will remember getting to deliver the news.
Kruzel will remember the clubhouse erupting.
Gordon will remember Flores’ game plan, the defense behind him and a group of teammates who suddenly stopped talking to him as the perfect innings accumulated.
And all of them will remember a night when one hit disappeared from the box score and something far larger replaced it.
A place in franchise history.
And one more memory belonging to a team that, as the season has moved deeper into August, has increasingly understood just how special its time together might be.