Nothing Minor about Astros' one-hitter

Daniel Minor met with Astros pitching coordinator Jon Matlack on Thursday to discuss his slider. One night later, he's already seeing results.

The 21-year-old right-hander allowed one hit and recorded a career-high 11 strikeouts over seven innings Friday as Rookie-level Greeneville beat Princeton, 5-0.

The strikeouts more than doubled Minor's previous best of five, while the seven innings established another career higha 2012 best.

Most of his success against the Rays came from those small adjustments he made to his primary off-speed pitch.

"We kind of just changed the grip a little and we saw the benefits of it tonight," said Minor, who also features a four-seam fastball, two-seamer, changeup and curveball. "When you're throwing the slider low and the fastball low, they both become more deceptive. ... We moved my grip more to the seams. It used to be off a little more, but that's something I'm going to be sticking to from here on out."

The slider not only allowed the Texas native to rack up strikeouts Friday, it gave him the ability to keep the Rays' hit total to the bare minimum.

Andrew Toles tripled with two outs in the bottom of the first and Minor walked the next batter, William Argo. But he retired 19 of the next 20 batters -- the Astros committed errors in the third and seventh, but Minor picked off James Harris after he reached in the third).

All of that meant the Astros' ninth-round pick in this year's Draft was one three-bagger away from the first no-hitter of his baseball career. That excludes a five-inning no-no for Dripping Springs (Texas) High School that even he claims "doesn't really count."

But that didn't irk the Texas A&M Corpus Christi product.

"I hadn't really thought about that at all," he said. "Obviously, it would've been nice to get a no-hitter, but you know what, I'll take the win. Hopefully, that no-hitter will come again somewhere down the line. It's still the fewest hits I've allowed at any level."

Minor has given up only three hits and a walk in his last two starts, building a 13-inning scoreless streak. That comes after a July 30 outing in which he set season highs by surrendering six runs on nine hits in 4 1/3 innings at Bluefield.

In his last two starts, he's lowered his opponents' batting average 54 points to .237.

"I started out the year a little shaky, but that was because I was on more of a pitch count," Minor said. "Toward the middle, they stretched me out, but I was keeping the ball up a little up and getting hit pretty well because of that. So I've been working with my pitching coach [Hector Mercado] a lot, and these last two starts have been absolutely my best."

Minor also said he can improve even more by keeping the ball down and using slightly better pitch selection.

"If I throw like I did tonight, it's definitely possible," he said of a no-hitter. "But I'm just looking to take it game by game, day by day and see where that gets me for now."