COLLEGE STATION, Texas – Texas A&M senior Kyle Simonds was tabbed the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA) National Pitcher of the Week in recognition of his no-hit performance against No. 5 Vanderbilt in Saturday’s 3-0 victory.
Others to honor Simonds as the National Pitcher of the Week include Collegiate Baseball/Louisville Slugger and CollegeSportsMadness.com.
Simonds posted one of the most efficient and dominating performances ever recorded in a top five match-up. The northpaw needed just 83 pitches to sink the Commodores, logging just one three-ball count and recording five innings with less than 10 pitches. He needed just nine pitches to navigate through the last two innings, including four in the ninth.
The Grand Island, Nebraska native pitched the 10th complete-game no-hitter* and sixth 9-inning complete-game no-hitter in school history. The only Vanderbilt runner reached base on an error with two outs in the first inning. He responded by retiring the next 25 batters.
Simonds threw Texas A&M’s first no-hitter since Ross Stripling blanked San Diego State on May 12, 2012. It marked the Aggies’ first no-hitter in a conference game since Fred Riscen held Rice without a knock in a 7-inning game on April 16, 1988.
He became the first SEC pitcher to throw a no-hitter in a league game since Todd Abbott of Arkansas did the deed against Vanderbilt in 1994.
The no-hitter came just one week after Simonds pitched his first career complete-game in a 6-2 win at Arkansas. He’s the first Aggie to pitch back-to-back complete-games since Daniel Mengden in May 2013.
Simonds is 8-1 on the season with a 2.48 ERA, .210 batting average and 55 strikeouts in 72.2 innings over 12 starts. The Aggies are 11-1 in games Simonds has started in 2016. Simonds’ career record stands at 11-3 with a 2.44 ERA.
