A no-hitter is a rare accomplishment for a pitcher in baseball. If you look at Major League Baseball, there have been only 323 no-hitters in all of MLB history. So a no-hitter for a high school baseball player is a huge achievement. That’s why congratulations and lots of media recognition have been pouring in for Walt Whitman sophomore Jaden Grose who threw a no-hitter in a game against Patchogue-Medford on April 9th. He threw 107 pitches, striking out 14 and walking only two in the 6-0 win.
Jaden said he just wanted a win that day. But in the fourth inning the possibility of a no-hitter started to take shape in the team’s mind after Jaden struck out the side. “I went into the dugout and they’re telling me, ‘You got no hits here.’ So I guess I wasn’t thinking about it until the fourth or fifth inning. But that still didn’t affect me at all. I felt good that day,” said Jaden.
From there the excitement started to amp up with each play. “Everyone was just cheering,” said Jaden. “Every time someone made a play. Strike one, strike two, strike three. And the coaches knew I had a chance of throwing a no hitter. So they just let me think about myself.”
And the cheers kept on coming until the last out of the game. As Jaden describes it after he threw the last pitch, “The whole team just started celebrating. Everyone was happy, I guess.”
They were very happy! Jaden was glad that his Mom, Dad, and two brothers were there to see his no-hitter, and especially happy about the cake his Mom got him to celebrate the big win. “They're always at my games. They're the ones always taking me to stuff, always giving me the training. I love them,” said Jaden.
It’s a huge accomplishment for a student-athlete who’s been playing baseball since he was four, started playing on the Whitman JV team while he was in eighth grade at Stimson, plays with a travel team in addition to being a Wildcat, wants to play college ball, and eventually make it to the big leagues as a pitcher. He’s been recognized by Newsday as a sophomore player to watch.
But more immediately, he’d like to win a championship while at Whitman. This season, Jaden is hoping to surpass the 50 strikeouts he had last year, not give up as many walks, and work on his conditioning to consistently throw in the high 80s. The regular season ends on May 12th and Jaden thinks he’ll get four or five more starts before then.
He’s happy to attribute a lot of his success to his Whitman coaches Keith Barrett and Jim Farrell. “They have confidence in me. I appreciate that they trust me to go out there and pitch.”
And even though the pitcher gets the accolades for the no-hitter, it doesn’t happen without the rest of the team. “I want them to know that I’ve always got their backs and am always trying to win with them,” expressed Jaden. “I love playing with them. It's something that makes baseball fun for me.”