On August 19, 2014, 21-year-old Jose De Leon set a new franchise record when he struck out 14 Fort Wayne TinCaps batters while with the Low Single-A Great Lakes Loons of the Midwest League. The previous record was 12 strikeouts set by Clayton Kershaw in 2007.

On May 5, 2015, that same Jose De Leon, now 22 years old and now with the Advanced Single-A Rancho Cucamonga Quakes of the California League, struck out 12 Visalia Rawhide batters – his season high – and just two shy of the Quakes franchise record of 14 set by right-hander Jon Michael Redding on July 16, 2011 against the Modesto Nuts. And while De Leon came up two strikeouts short in his bid to become the holder of two Dodgers minor league affiliate franchise records, his performance was actually better than Redding’s.

In his game against Modesto, Redding allowed two runs on four hits (including two solo home runs) and did not walk a batter in his seven innings of work.

In his game against Visalia, De Leon allowed no runs, one hit with one walk and one hit batsman in his seven innings of work. In fact, De Leon took a perfect game into the third inning when Visalia second baseman Fidel Pena hit a weak dribbler up the third base line for an infield single.

De Leon’s 12 strikeouts on Tuesday night was the seventh time in his three-year minor league career that he has stuck out ten or more batters. (Photo credit – Ron Cervenka)

To what does De Leon owe his success in Tuesday night’s dominating 7-3 win over the California League’s current best team?

“I was locating my fastball, it was really working today and that was the difference,” De Leon said. “When you can locate your fastball in and out, up and down it opens up the zone a lot more and you get hitters in swing mode. And then you throw your off-speeds and they’re going to swing regardless if it’s in or out of the zone.”

It seemed only fitting that De Leon recorded his 10th strike out of the night against the guy who got the only hit off of him. (Photo credit – Ron Cervenka)

As usually happens in a no-hitter or a one-hitter, De Leon received a lot of help from his teammates. Offensively, the Quakes pounded out seven runs on 10 hits including a two-run home run by shortstop Tyler Wampler in his very first at bat of his very first game with the Quakes, having been promoted earlier in the day from Great Lakes.

But that wasn’t all that Wampler did in his debut – he also made a spectacular leaping catch of a line drive off the bat of Visalia shortstop Domingo Leyba for the second out of the seventh inning. When asked about that play, De Leon smiled and shook his head.

“Man, he always does something,” said De Leon of Wampler. “I remember my game in Fort Wayne when I struck out 14. He was recently called up [from Ogden], it was his first game there too and he made some great plays there also.”

Could De Leon have gone longer than seven innings – his longest outing of the season thus far?

“I was getting kind of tired,” said De Leon. “I was already at 95 pitches and we were winning seven-nothing so there was no point to stretch it out a little more. But I felt good today.”

Good indeed, Jose.