Crawdads' Cody tosses eight one-hit innings

After nearly two months into his first full professional season with Class A Hickory, Kyle Cody decided it was time to wander into uncharted territory.
The Rangers' prospect gave up one hit and one walk over eight scoreless frames in the Crawdads' 2-1, 10-inning loss to Lakewood at First Energy Park. 
Cody threw 71 of 96 pitches for strikes and recorded a season high for strikeouts on the road with eight. The right-hander was also backed by two double plays during the longest start of his career.

"Everything felt really good tonight; it's a strong outing for me. I'm just going to keep trying to work off that outing," the 22-year-old said. "There's no better feeling for me because it kept my pitch count down, being able to get some quick outs. I love being able to stay in games as long as possible."
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In 12 starts, Cody has a 3.92 ERA with 51 strikeouts while holding opponents to a .247 batting average. It was the first scoreless outing for the 2016 sixth-round pick since striking out a career-high 10  over seven frames against Greensboro on May 16.
"The past few outings, I haven't really been myself," Cody said. "I've been leaving too many fastballs over the plate, but tonight I was able to get quick outs and work pretty fast."
The University of Kentucky product credited his slider as a lethal put-away pitch with two strikes and said his changeup was particularly effective against left-handed hitters.
"I was able to throw [the slider] for strikes early in the count and then late in the count I was able to bury it and then I was getting some swings and misses on that," Cody said. "[The changeup is] something I've kind of been working a lot on recently. That was really promising tonight."
The Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, native retired the first four batters before surrendering a double to Henri Lartigue. He did not allow another baserunner until Darick Hall walked with two outs in the fourth.
"I really commanded my fastball well. That allowed me to throw my off-speed pitches," Cody said. "I'd say at the beginning it was being able to locate my fastball and get some ground balls, and that really opened up a lot of different things and more possibilities from me later in the game with my other pitches."
He allowed two more BlueClaws to reach base -- both on dropped third strikes -- but faced the minimum over the final 4 1/3 innings. Cody fanned Edgar Cabral and David Martinelli on six pitches to begin his final frame, but an errant throw by catcher Alex Kowalczyk after Martinelli chased a pitch in the dirt put the Lakewood left fielder on first with one out for Luke Williams.

Cody left a 2-1 fastball over the plate and Williams got enough of the barrel on it to send a rope back up the middle. The 6-foot-7 hurler, though, trapped the ball between his elbow and his right hip and held on in a Heisman Trophy-like pose for the out. Martinelli was caught off first and Cody tossed the ball to Ti'Quan Forbes to complete the double play.
"It was pretty crazy," Cody said. "It just happened so fast that it kind of caught me off-guard and I was able to kind of crunch it up and hold onto the ball."
Cody gave way to Nick Dignacco, who gave up a game-tying triple to Raul Rivas in the ninth and a walk-off single to Arquimedes Gamboa in the 10th.