Houston Astros Minors Update: Three prospects work no-hitter for Tri-City

While the big league Houston Astros battled in a close game against the Oakland Athletics on the West Coast, three prospects combined for a no-hitter for the Class-A Tri-City ValleyCats.

According to Alex M. Smith of MLB.com, Kevin McCanna, Zac Person, and Ralph Garza nearly had themselves a perfect game but still managed to walk away with the 5-0 win over the Baltimore Orioles affiliate, Aberdeen IronBirds.

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Now, in case you haven’t heard, the men involved were all drafted by the Astros this year. McCanna (0-2, 3.28 ERA) was selected in the 13th round out of Rice University in Houston, Texas – this pretty much makes him a hometown boy even though he was born and raised in The Woodlands which is only 31 minutes away from the city.

The San Diego Padres originally drafted him back in 2012 during the 22nd round out of high school, but he opted to go to college instead. Not that bad of a choice since he’s with a solid contender in the A.L. West.

Person (1-3, 8.44 ERA) was teammates with shortstop Alex Bregman at Louisiana State University but was drafted eight rounds after the young infielder. He’s only made two starts with the ValleyCats this season and has been tagged with 10 earned runs on 18 hits across 10 2/3 frames of work thus far.

As for Garza (1-1, 2.59 ERA) who somewhat resembles Milwaukee Brewers pitcher, David Garza, isn’t related to the veteran right-hander. He’s another Texas native who signed with Oklahoma State University and put up some great numbers over the course of three years as a member of the Sooners.

Garza finished his collegiate career with a 12-8 record,  84 appearances, four starts, one complete game, nine saves with a 123/57 K/BB ratio across 150 innings of work before he was drafted.

Those 84 appearances rank third all-time in school history. Rather impressive and should show A.J. Hinch that he’s a reliable arm that you can count on a day-to-day basis when he’s ready to be called up to the show.

Both Garza and Person were signed after McCanna, who inked a contract worth 100k back on June 17.

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