And a home run. Don’t forget the home run. He hit a home run against Milwaukee in interleague play earlier this year.
Start considering him. Here in Chicago we certainly think of him in that category. Of course he still needs to demonstrate staying power, but if the second half of his career is anything like the first, he’s in.
About 1 in 112,000 by my calculations (which means, we’d expect about two since 1900 if I did the math right). So it’s probably true that pitchers are a little better than average on the day they throw perfect games, but it’s still very rare and hard to do.
I don’t think that’s true. Unless someone actually did strike out 27 straight (which will never happen at this level), it’s understood that everyone did their part, and even then, you can bet the catcher will be sitting in at the press conference. Plus there’s always an almost-blew-it moment like Wise’s (or Rowand’s) catch that’ll be replayed almost as often as the final out.
I think the only people who don’t understand that right off the bat (and no offense meant to anyone here) are those who don’t really know what a perfect game is in the first place.
I think that anyone who’s even a casual baseball fan understands that a perfect game is a collective team accomplishment, but the pitcher really does deserve most of the kudos. The best defensive team in the world can’t catch a 500 foot homerun.
Buehrle’s 30 years old and has been pitching for 10 years. He’s had a very nice career. Talk about the Hall of Fame isn’t just premature – I think I’d be comfortable saying that it’s nearly impossible for him to get in at this point.
The only ways he gets in is if this is close to literally the halfway point of his career; this would mean that he ends up in the top 30 or so all-time in innings pitched and games started, and continues at the same level of production (I think this is unlikely), or if he suddenly gets a lot better over the next four or five years (I think this is even less likely).
He’s had, and probably will have, a very very good career, certainly. Hall of Fame means something a bit more than that, though, and really Buehrle’s never really approached the level of dominance that you’d expect from a Hall of Famer in his peak years. So like I said, he’d have to get in the other way, by being exactly as good as he has been thus far for like another 10 years. And hey, maybe he will, since he’s certainly been incredibly durable thus far. It just doesn’t usually happen that way. And he just threw a perfect game, so I’m not trying to downplay his accomplishments at all.
DeWise is getting plenty of attention.
And no one’s mentioned that Buehrle’s first no-hitter was a Sammy Sosa walk away from another perfect game (Buehrle managed to pick him off first a few pitches later).
Buehrle is so up and down that I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone describe him as “great.” He’s having a fantastic year this year (even before the perfecto), but before that he was a .500 pitcher who isn’t flashy (few strikeouts, no 20 win seasons, gives up a lot of hits) and doesn’t get the style points a similarly good but not great pitcher like Kerry Wood got in his prime.
It is an interesting question though - can individual game successes grant someone HOF status when career #s would otherwise rule them out? Lets say you had a pitcher who finished with 150 wins and a career era of 3.50, but he threw 7 no hitters and 2 perfect games along the way. And lets throw in some memorable post-season performances, too. Does he make it in? I say yes. Koufax made it in with 167 wins, after all.
Re: team recognition- After the no-hitter, Buehrle treated each of his teammates to a new watch, and I am assuming these were not cheapies. He mentioned he planned on this being another very expensive accomplishment.
I would say yes as well. However, the Hall of Fame voters are a stubborn bunch who cling to their benchmarks and Buerhle won’t get any closer to 300 wins than I will to a sit down dinner with Michael Jackson (what with him being dead and all). I’d guess he needs at least two more no-hitters (to tie Koufax for second all-time) to get serious HoF consideration.
To those non-baseball fans that for some reason have made it this far in the thread… you can throw a no-hitter and still lose, as long as the runs score on some combination of errors, steals, and walks. This has happened a few times in recent memory.
Koufax would be in there without a single no-hitter, though. It’s not about the total number of wins - his career was short and hardcore baseball people mostly discount wins (and ERA, too) these days. It’s about how well he pitched when he was at his best.
I don’t think that hypothetical guy gets in. People would be wondering why a guy with untouchable stuff couldn’t do better than about 15 wins a year (or less) and he’d be considered a disappointment, if anything - a spectacular kind of disappointment who couldn’t put it all together. He sounds like he’d be an early-career Randy Johnson, where he’s unhittable some days, but more often, he can’t find the plate with a GPS. I can’t see 75 percent of the hall voters getting behind that.
A no-hitter or a perfect game is a great achievement but even for a great pitcher, it’s basically a fluke.
You cannot, however, lose a perfect game.
And an official no-hit loss has only happened twice: in 1964 and 1967 (the latter was a combined no-hitter). Four other times the road team has lost a game in which their pitcher threw eight no-hit innings, but those are not officially no hitters, as they were not nine-innings.
Buehrle’s record before this year was 122-87, a .584 winning percentage. Counting his 11-3 start this year he is now 133-90, a .596 winning percentage. Greg Maddux’s lifetime winning percentage was .610. As for 20-win seasons, they are becoming increasingly rare in an era when even the most durable starting pitchers are limited to 225 innings. There were four last year in all of MLB, but none in 2006 and only one in 2007.
Perhaps the most notable one in recent memory (recent enough for me, at any rate) was on July 1, 1990, when Andy Hawkins of the Yankees pitched a no hitter against the White Sox … and lost 4-0.
1992: Matt Young throws a no-hitter for the Red Sox, but 7 walks and an error means he loses to Cleveland, 2-1.
I remember that game - he sucked as much as he usually did, and hardly anyone even noticed the no-hitter until it was almost over. Few congratulations came his way, only incredulity at the fluke.
And before I forget, a word of praise for the front-row fan who didn’t pull a Bartman and allowed Wise to catch the ball.
Exactly.
Buerhle got 6 strikeouts yesterday. That means that 21 hitters put the ball in play. In all of MLB, the Batting Average on Balls in Play is about .290.
Now, Buerhle is a better-than-average pitcher, and yesterday he was clearly having a better-than-average day. But no-one gets a no-hitter or a perfect game without some luck.
That ball caught by Wise was not some pop-up home run like you sometimes see down the right field line at Fenway. It was crushed, and all it would have taken to get out was a tiny bit more wind, or a slightly-less-than-awesome play by Wise. There were also a couple of line-drive outs that, had they gone a yard or so either way, would have been base hits.
I’m not trying to minimize Buerhle’s accomplishment, but a perfect game requires an incredibly unlikely combination of excellent pitching and luck.
There were also a couple of line drives to left, one foul by a few inches deep in left, the other just past 3rd that was foul by maybe the width of the ball.
OK, his winning percentage was a bit better than I had realized, but he still has no “flash” to push his name out there among the greats. He doesn’t strike a lot of guys out. He gives up a lot of hits (except for his two no-nos of course). And he has only gotten above 16 wins once, let alone 20.