The Rockaway Wave
Originally published June 14, 2024
On August 23, 2009, Brandon Moore threw the first no-hitter in the history of the Brooklyn Cyclones.
Fifteen years later, three pitchers — Dakota Hawkins, Joey Lancellotti and Joshua Cornielly — combined to throw the first nine-inning no-hitter in Cyclones history.
“Impressive, historic, ecstatic — it doesn’t happen that often, so you’ve gotta really appreciate those moments,” Cyclones Manager Gilbert Gómez said. “… It’s definitely something that a lot of people will remember.”
There are some major differences between the two no-hitters. Moore was the only pitcher in his and it was a seven-inning game as part of a doubleheader, while the 2024 no-hitter was a combined effort and a full nine-inning game.
However, the two games also share some remarkable similarities — enough to elicit an excited “no way” from Moore when he found out.
Both no-hitters were against the Aberdeen IronBirds, an affiliate of the Baltimore Orioles. Both final half-inning sequences went flyout, flyout, two-out walk, and then ground out to the middle infield to end the game. Moore finished the game with six strikeouts, three walks and one hit by pitch. Hawkins, Lancellotti, and Cornielly combined to finish the game with six strikeouts, three walks, and one hit by pitch.
Moore, a 14th-round pick by the Mets in 2008, played five seasons in the organization and reached as high as Double-A. In 2009, Moore spent the entire season with Brooklyn, who at that time were a Class A Short Season team playing in the New York-Penn League. He made 13 starts for the Cyclones and posted a 2.09 ERA and 0.95 WHIP with 71 strikeouts in 82 innings.
Thinking back on his no-hitter, Moore said he remembered being exhausted, not feeling well and just trying to make it through the game.
“It was kind of unbelievable — and hot,” Moore said. “It was a day game, and it was crazy, crazy hot. We had a late night the night before, and I felt like crap the next morning. I was actually warming up in the bullpen, and I threw up a couple of times before the game, puking in the bullpen. Now thinking about it, it’s pretty crazy that it happened that way.”
He said he was shaking in between innings just trying to drink water, and called the game a mental and physical battle. He said he felt so bad that he didn’t even realize what was going on for most of the game.
“I wasn’t even really looking at the scoreboard,” Moore said. “I was coming in, putting a towel over my head, one of those wet towels, trying to get cooled down and stuff. I wasn’t even really too aware. … It didn’t feel as if when I was pitching that there was a no-hitter going.”
Brooklyn’s more recent no-hitter was less arduous. Hawkins, who signed with the Mets as a free agent in 2023 out of Washington State University, was the game’s starting pitcher. Making what was just the second start of his professional career, he went five innings — his most as a pro — with two strikeouts and one walk.
“He’s a strike thrower, he mixes, he can pitch,” Gómez said. “Not a guy that necessarily has that elite velo, but moves the ball around and attacks hitters. That was an efficient five-inning outing that he threw that day, and we expect that from him. We know that he’s gonna be in zone, that he’s gonna be mixing his pitches in a way that’s gonna try to keep the hitters off balance. It’s not surprising that he was able to give us those five innings.”
In every no-hitter, it seems like there’s at least one signature play. One web gem, one highlight reel snag, one seemingly improbable play that keeps the no-hitter intact.
For Johan Santana’s no-hitter in 2012, it was Mike Baxter crashing into the left field wall to keep the Cardinals hitless. For Moore, he said he didn’t remember specifics but did remember one or two that stood out as really good plays.
For Hawkins and the Cyclones, it came on the very first at-bat.
On the third pitch of the game, IronBirds leadoff hitter Enrique Bradfield Jr. roped a ball that seemed destined for the right field corner. Cyclones right fielder Stanley Consuegra had other ideas.
In a full sprint going back and to his left, Consuegra made a leaping catch on the edge of the warning track, bouncing off the wall to record the first out of the ballgame. No one knew it at the time, but Consuegra just saved a no-hitter.
John Vaughn, Brooklyn’s bench coach, said it’s a good lesson for his outfielders.
“Be ready to go from hitter one,” Vaughn said. “When he makes that catch with Bradfield, you don’t really think ‘Oh, that’s gonna be a no-hitter.’ But that’s kind of how baseball works. You’ve gotta be ready to go from pitch one, from hitter one.”
It wasn’t just Consuegra who showed off the glove, Hawkins, Gómez and Cyclones pitching coach Daniel McKinney all went out of their way to give credit to the game William Lugo had at shortstop.
“We all have joked about how that whole night could have been a lot different depending on whether Stanley makes a web gem the very first play of the game,” McKinney said. “Made
another really nice catch, and then Lugo made some really nice plays. He had a really hard-hit ball right at him that he stayed in front of and made the play.”
After Hawkins came out of the game, he said he was doing some arm care in the bullpen and didn’t realize the no-hitter was still active until the ninth inning.
“I was kind of watching the game a little bit, but it’s one of those things that you just don’t even really wanna think about until it happens,” Hawkins said. “And then yeah, I looked up in the ninth and saw they had zero hits and I was like ‘dang, this could really happen in three outs.’”
Lancellotti, a 34th-round pick by the New York Yankees in 2019 who did not sign and was later picked up by the Mets as a free agent out of the University of North Carolina in 2022, was next into the game. He threw one inning and recorded one strikeout and one walk.
“You never know if you’re just showing up for a regular Tuesday game or if you’re even gonna get involved, and it turns out to be something that you’ve written up in the history books here,” Lancellotti said. “Ended up being a really cool experience.”
On the second batter of Lancellotti’s outing, the stadium experienced some déjà vu. Adam Retzbach, the same batter who had the hard-hit ball to Lugo that McKinney referenced, lined a ball into deep right field — and Consuegra did it again.
Eerily similar to the catch he made on Bradfield’s shot to open up the game, Consuegra went back and to his left, lept at the warning track, and caught the ball before bouncing off the wall. Once again, Consuegra saved the no-hitter, except this time people knew what was on the line.
Lancellotti said he was aware Hawkins exited the game with a no-hitter intact when he took the mound in the sixth inning, even though it was still relatively early. When you come into the game in that situation, he said, you’re locked in and have a little extra adrenaline. You don’t want to be the guy to give it up.
He also said that when the phone rings in the bullpen during a no-hitter, you want it to be your name that gets the call.
“You want to be involved,” Lancellotti said. “I think being in the bullpen, something you look forward to is the big adrenaline moment. Any game that feels like it’s more important — not that every game’s not important — but one that has something special to it, you want to be a part of.”
Next and last to get the call was Cornielly, who signed with the Mets as an international free agent in 2018 out of Venezuela. He said the bullpen was quiet before he went in, following the unwritten rule of not talking about the no-hitter.
Cornielly, who spent all of 2023 with the Cyclones as well, was tasked with getting the final nine outs of the game. In his longest appearance of the season, Cornielly threw three hitless innings with three strikeouts, one walk, and one hit-by-pitch to close out the no-hitter.
“It was an amazing moment,” Cornielly said. “It’s something I always dreamed about when I was a kid.”
Like Lancellotti, Cornielly was aware when he entered the game that a no-hitter was on the line. He said he felt some pressure initially and worried about hanging a pitch to get the IronBirds in the hit column, but it went away after the first batter.
Cornielly threw three innings, which means he had to back to the dugout and wait two separate times. He said he’d get cheers from his teammates but then they’d give him his space, as is tradition when a no-hitter is in play.
All that was going through his head while waiting to go back out for the ninth, he said, was “three more batters.”
Douglas Hodo III flew out to right field to start the inning, and Bradfield followed with a fly out to center. Tavian Josenberger drew a full-count walk on a check swing — even though Hawkins said they all thought he went — and Elio Prado grounded out to shortstop. Ballgame. No-hitter.
Incredibly, the catcher of this historic moment in Brooklyn Cyclones history was none other than the man whose face is plastered all over the ballpark: Francisco Alvarez.
“That was awesome,” Lancellotti said. “You watch TV, see him on TV, and hear so many awesome things about him, and to get the experience actually throwing to him, and how he was just able to come out there and treat you like a teammate and call your game, it was pretty awesome.”
Alvarez, who played 84 games for the Cyclones in 2021, was on a rehab assignment making his way back from a thumb injury.
Hawkins joked about how it was obviously unfortunate that he was hurt, but he definitely didn’t mind that he was the one catching them on the day of the no-hitter. Cornielly called Alvarez an old friend, having played with him in 2019.
When Cornielly got the last out, it was his former (and temporarily current) teammate and fellow countryman who was the first one to embrace him.
Then the celebrations ensued. The team mobbed Cornielly on the mound. Hawkins and Lancellotti each gave Cornielly a big hug. Mateo Gil tried to get Cornielly with the Powerade bucket but mainly got first baseman Nick Lorusso instead. Another bucket was launched that for the most part missed Cornielly as well, but Douglas Orellana eventually got to him and dumped a couple of water bottles on his head.
“That moment, it was a special one,” McKinney said. “Those are moments that don’t come around too often. … It was just a special moment that I’m glad we all got to celebrate together.”
Hawkins, Lancellotti and Cornielly, along with Alvarez, all signed balls for each other — and Cornielly gave Hawkins the ball from the final out of the game.
“He pitched five innings, so I think he deserved it more than us,” Cornielly said. “We got game balls, but I think he deserved that one.”
Moore, now a goldsmith and Little League coach for his two boys in his hometown of Crawfordsville, Indiana, also has a ball from his no-hitter. It’s not signed, but he joked that he might have his catcher Dock Doyle sign it for him the next time he sees him.
As for Gómez, he has a ticket stub from the game — one that was still sitting on his desk days later.
Lancellotti said he threw a couple of no-hitters in high school but not at any higher level. Hawkins said he lost a no-hitter 2-0 in Little League when he was 16. Cornielly said this was his first. The same goes for Moore.
“I’d never thrown a no-hitter,” Moore said. “So, what’s better than that other than a perfect game?”
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