Arkansas Travelers Manager Mark Parent has seen starting pitchers react negatively to a career-defining performance.
He was a bench coach for the Chicago White Sox in 2012 when Phillip Humber threw a perfect game, yielded nine runs in his next start and was demoted to Class AAA three months after that.
Arkansas Travelers' pitcher Jordan Kipper didn't follow Humber's immediate path in Sunday's 6-4 victory over the Springfield Cardinals.
Five days after no-hitting the Northwest Arkansas Naturals, Kipper (4-2) held the Cardinals to 2 runs on 8 hits over 7 innings to earn the victory.
Parent kept a close eye on Kipper during the four days in between starts, ready to jump in with advice on how to follow up such a start. But Parent never saw any reason to intervene.
"You have to see him do something that he shouldn't be doing first," Parent said. "But, I don't think he's digging himself. He's working hard."
Kipper was just fine in his first start since his first no-hitter at any level.
In front of 5,081 fans at Dickey-Stephens Park, Kipper didn't strike out a batter, but held the Cardinals scoreless until a two-run home run to Nick Thompson in the seventh inning.
Kipper, who has lowered his ERA by almost a run to 3.63 in his last two starts, said he knew he likely couldn't top his last outing, when be became the first Traveler since Ryan Brasier in 2010 to throw a no-hitter.
So, rather than trying to do that again, Kipper said he tried to focus on making the kind of pitches that made the no-hitter possible.
"So, I just wanted to go out there and make good quality pitches down in the zone," said Kipper, a ninth-round pick of the Los Angeles Angels out of TCU in 2014. "Not everything is going to be perfect. A no-hitter is not going to happen very often. Rarely do you get a chance to do that."
Kipper retired the final 26 batters he faced in the no-hitter, and extended that streak to 30 consecutive batters before Paul DeJong's one-out double in the second.
Kipper got the next two batters to ground out, then pitched around a two-out single in the third, consecutive one-out singles with a double-play in the fifth and loaded the bases before getting DeJong to line out in the sixth.
In the seventh, Carson Kelly singled before Thompson turned on a fastball for a two-run home run to left field that broke up the shutout.
"Just left it up and over the middle," Kipper said.
He gave up a single, got the final two outs in the seventh and his outing was done.
Kipper, whose ERA was 4.61 before his last start, said he's learning to take positives out of the whole picture.
"I'm not going to let one mistake put a damper on the day overall," he said.
The Travs' offense did all its work with four runs in the fourth and two in the fifth.
Eric Aguilera hit his fifth home run, in the fourth, and Jabari Henry followed with a home run to left field, the first time two Travs have homered back to back since last June 20.
Later in the inning, Bo Way walked and stole second base before scoring on Angel Rosa's single to left and Rosa scored on Anthony Phillips' triple.
Chad Hinshaw singled in the fifth and scored on Henry's single. Henry scored on Way's single to make it 6-0.
Henry, who also hit a home run Saturday, is 3 for 8 in his last two games after going hitless the previous four.
"He's starting to understand that you always have to see the ball out of the pitcher's hand," Parent said. "There are certain things that you always have to do, and you get away from one or two things and you're in a funk. They can't figure it out, and that's what it is."
Sports on 05/23/2016