ANAHEIM -- This season, overall, hasn’t gone the way that left-hander Noah Cameron had hoped. But he’s been throwing the ball well this summer, and the results speak for themselves.
Cameron dominated the Angels on Sunday by tossing a one-hit shutout in the Royals’ 3-0 win at Angel Stadium.
“He was in command all day,” Royals manager Matt Quatraro said. “It was efficient. The last two innings were probably the most stressful innings, and he made big pitches, getting strikeouts in the last couple innings there with the changeup. So, good for him. I mean, it's exciting, and it was a big way for us to finish the road trip.”
It’s the first one-hit shutout by a Royals starter since franchise legend Zack Greinke on Aug. 30, 2009. This is also the second complete-game shutout by a Royals starter this season, with Stephen Kolek achieving the feat back in May.
It’s the first time since 2014 that the Royals have had multiple pitchers with complete-game shutouts.
The 27-year-old struck out eight batters, and used his complete arsenal of pitches to play off one another.
“My idea, trying to set guys up, trying to play games with the hitters, that's obviously a big part of pitching,” Cameron said. “It's figuring out how to get guys out, sequence stuff, and that's opened up a lot of things. It's opened up the fastball up [in the strike zone], cutters, backdoors, front doors, just a lot of openness when I'm laying in those first strikes and getting [hitters to] chase on them.”
Particularly effective were his slider and changeup, the two pitches he used the most. Both pitches had whiff rates north of 40%, per Statcast, and were only hit hard three times out of 10 balls put in play.
“Changeup looked like it had a parachute behind it,” catcher Carter Jensen said. “Fastball was playing really well. Cutter, curveball, slider, it was like everything was working. He didn't really have a down pitch today. So when you're catching a guy that has five pitches working, it's special and it's a lot of fun.”
Cameron flirted with history, too.
He carried a perfect game into the sixth inning, but walked Oswald Peraza to lead off the inning. The no-hit bid fell through the next inning, when Vaughn Grissom blooped a single into left field.
Even though his bid for history was foiled, it was also a sigh of relief in a way for Cameron, as he didn’t have to deal with the pressure of having a no-hitter or perfect game over his head.
After Grissom’s hit, Cameron retired the final eight batters in order and struck out four of them.
As the inning totals continued to go up, so did Cameron’s velocity. His average fastball velocity was 92 mph in the first inning, but it climbed to 93.7 mph by the ninth inning, per Statcast. Cameron attributed the adrenaline rush for his velocity rising the further his outing went.
He has a 1.19 ERA in his last five outings since he began calling his own pitches. One reason why calling his own pitches has helped is that Cameron now feels more conviction with each pitch.
“It's weird how it works like that,” Cameron said. “I think just because I'm stubborn, and I want it to be my idea a little bit, because obviously they're calling the same pitches that I'm calling. It has nothing to do with pitch sequencing, pitch selection. It's just more of a my idea type thing. It's helped just get back in the zone, change something up from the first half of the year.”
At the plate, Michael Massey stayed hot by turning in a 3-for-4 effort with a solo home run in the fourth to get the scoring started. It was Massey’s second three-hit performance of the weekend.
Bobby Witt Jr. also finally got back on the board in the home run department with a solo shot of his own in the fifth inning. It was his first home run since July 9.
The Royals return to Kansas City on a high note after taking the series from the Angels on the backs of strong pitching performances from Cameron and right-hander Randy Dobnak.