Royals' No. 5 Prospect Flirts With No-Hitter In Spectacular MLB Debut

The Kansas City Royals had to skip a start for ace Cole Ragans, which is always a situation teams hope to avoid.

No big deal, though. The Royals turned to their number-five prospect to make his major league debut, and 25-year-old Noah Cameron responded with as brilliant a performance as you'll ever see from a first-timer.

Facing the Tampa Bay Rays at George Steinbrenner Field, Cameron went 6 1/3 no-hit innings before finally surrendering a single to the Rays' Curtis Mead. He only struck out three batters and walked five, but the goal of baseball is to keep the opposing team off the scoreboard, and you don't score if you don't get hits.

After Mead's hit, Cameron was pulled in favor of John Schreiber at 79 pitches. Schreiber got out of the inning to preserve Cameron's scoreless line. The Royals went on to win 3-0, clinching a series win in Tampa and putting them above .500 at 16-15.

After his brilliant debut, Cameron was seemingly awestruck.

“You can’t put it into words,” Cameron said, per MLB.com's Anne Rogers. “It’s something I’ve always dreamed about, especially with this team. And it’s just crazy. Not what you’d expect, but I’m glad to get out of there with what happened. You just can’t make it up.”

Cameron grew up a Royals fan in St. Joseph, Mo. He first decided he wanted to be a professional baseball player around the time when he got a wave from Zack Greinke at age four during a game at Kauffman Stadium one year, according to Rogers.

Also per Rogers, the only pitcher ever to throw a no-hitter in his MLB debut was... the Cincinnati Reds' Bumpus Jones in 1892.

“I thought he was going to do it,” manager Matt Quatraro said. “The pitch count was really manageable. ... We know he throws strikes, and he was challenging guys. He had a good mix. Just really impressive.”

Ragans should be back for his next start, and now an interesting decision for the Royals arises. Could Cameron really go back to Triple-A after a no-hit bid in the big leagues? Only time will tell.

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