One pitch was all that separated Jake Brigham from history on Thursday.

The Braves farmhand came within three outs of a perfect game as Double-A Mississippi defeated Jackson, 8-1.

Brigham retired the first 24 batters in order, needing only 82 pitches to dispatch the Generals through eight innings. The 27-year-old saw his hopes of achieving the first no-hitter in the Southern League this season dashed on the first pitch of the ninth inning, as Daniel Paolini lined Brigham's offering into left field for a double.

"He just swung at the first pitch, a slider, I probably tried to overthrow it a little bit to make it a little better than it was," he said. "Came out of the gate swinging and I left it up and he hit a double. At that point I thought, let's get the next three guys out. We're gonna win the game, we had a big lead, so I thought, let's get the next three guys and end the game."

Which is exactly what he did. After tossing a wild pitch to advance Paolini to third, Brigham (5-2) got a pair of groundouts, the first of which brought home a run, before striking out Ian Miller to end the game. He faced one over the minimum for the Braves while fanning a season-high 10 batters.

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"It was fun," the Florida native said. "It was really exciting, I've never done that before. It was a new experience and I enjoyed it. I was locating my fastballs and breaking balls.

"I think I struck out most of them on my slider. Slider was working well. I struck out some guys later on with my fastball which I think they may have been cheating to a certain pitch because they had seen my slider. It opened up the door for a good hard fastball down and away or changing eye levels and going up with my fastball."

Brigham had not thrown a complete game since Aug. 10, 2010 for Hickory while with the Texas Rangers organization. It took a while for him to even realize what he was doing on Thursday was pretty special.

"I started thinking in the fifth, I couldn't remember being in the stretch at all," Brigham said. "I looked up and saw that I hadn't been in the stretch at all. In the sixth inning, nobody sat down on the bench when I came in so I kind of figured it out there."

As one would expect in a bid for a perfect game, Brigham's control was on point. The hurler did not throw three balls to a batter until Jordan Cowan with one out in the ninth.

"That's just what we're drilled to do," he said. "First-pitch strike, get ahead of hitters. I just think it was my aggressive mentality. Before the game, [catcher] Stevie [Rodriguez] and I talked, and our game plan was to attack hitters and change speeds and we did that."

Brigham sought to become the first pitcher in team history to throw a perfect game, and the third to toss a no-hitter after Tommy Hanson on June 25, 2008 and a combined one by Julio Teheran and Tyrelle Harris on Aug. 2, 2010.

The Braves gave Brigham plenty to work with offensively. Eric Garcia homered and drove in three runs while Braves' No. 6 prospect Rio Ruiz hit an RBI double.

Misael Silverio fell to 2-5 after giving up five runs -- two earned -- on seven hits over 2 2/3 innings for the Generals.