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Nema Near Perfect in One-Hit Victory Over Charlotte as Pittsburgh Wins Ninth Straight

After over 30 years of futility, the Pittsburgh Crawfords are the talk of the NABF after taking their ninth straight behind the most dominant pitching performance of a stretch in which they’ve outscored opponents 59-7. Karunamaya Nema carried a perfect game into the sixth, and finished with a complete game one-hitter, while his offense piled on with ten runs against a defenseless Hornets staff. The win keeps Pittsburgh at three games up on Charlotte.

After Nema completed the first on twelve pitches, striking out Dylan Harris, the Crawfords gave him all the runs he’d need in the bottom half. After two singles by Joe Guthrie and Donovan Bryant, offseason acquisition Chi-cheng Miao launched his tenth homer, a scorching line drive that landed in the left field bleachers at PNC Park.

The homer gave the Crawfords a 3-0 lead that they would improve upon in the second, as Bryan Knowles raised his season batting average into the .380s with an RBI double scoring Joe Guthrie. Another three runs came in during a raucous 4th that began with a Doug Jagger double. After a strikeout, Nate Pettigrew walked to bring up the leadoff hitter Guthrie, who smoked a ball into the right-center gap scoring Jagger and chasing starter John Richardson; Donovan Bryant would bring both baserunners home with his own double to deep center a few batters later.

All the while, Nema cruised, inducing grounder after grounder with the best sinker he’s shown all season, and overpowering those who went deeper in the count. Jason McCollum gave the crowd a scare when he smoked a ball to lead off the fifth, but shortstop Nate Pettigrew made a diving stop of the 115 mph rope and got McCollum easily, and a pop-up and strikeout closed it out. After five perfect innings, he had recorded only two fly ball outs while striking out five.

Another Doug Jagger double plated Pittsburgh’s eighth run in the bottom of the fifth, and Nema went back out with the crowd starting to buzz. The excitement deflated quickly as Nema walked the leadoff batter, Jose Nunez, and then allowed a one-out single to Luke Townend. But he erased Townend on a James Arnold double play ball, and the runner stranded at second would be the last one Charlotte would get in the game.

Nema shut the Hornets down with practiced ease for the rest of the game. Ernesto Gonzales, one of the hardest hitters to strike out in the entire Federation, went down on three straight swinging strikes in the 7th, the last coming on Nema’s first screwball of the game. Two pop-ups and a strikeout made up the entirety of Charlotte’s eighth inning, and it ended equally quietly in the ninth, as a soft popup and a sharp grounder were handled in succession by Nate Pettigrew before James Arnold rolled a ball to first, where Mark Butler scooped it up and tossed to Nema to complete the gem. With the win, Pittsburgh moved to 28-18, now the team to beat in D4.