As should this one.
Andy Hawkins didn’t get credited with a no-hitter for his ‘gem’ in 1990 (he only pitched 8 innings as the Yankees lost due to errors and Chicago didn’t need to bat in the ninth.) It’s hard to see MLB awarding Bumgarner for a seven inning jobber.
It’s time to get rid of the 7 inning doubleheaders, and the odious, bush-league extra-inning baserunner nonsense too.
I’m not a fan of those things either, but Bumgarner’s feat was still a no-hitter, and honestly I don’t care what MLB says about it. If they say it’s not, they’re lying.
You can’t change the length of a game and then say a guy who pitched that entire length of the game without giving up any hits didn’t pitch a no hitter. That makes absolutely no sense at all.
A seven inning no-hitter has to have an asterisk, and that’s all there is to it. Starters become fatigued in the 8th and 9th, which is why teams have very busy bullpens. Finishing those two innings and maintaining the no-hitter is very challenging, which is why many pitchers who have had no-hitters through 7 innings end up without one. I’d love to know that stat.
From that link:
Does that mean there’s precedent for not counting Bumgartner’s game as a no-hitter?
I had been wondering if there had been no-hit games that were called on account of rain before 9 innings.
Last night’s Padres-Dodgers game really showed how fun the Padres are to watch and how much I miss that style of aggressive baseball. Seriously, when’s the last time you saw a hit and run? A double steal? It feels like forever for me. It was also a good reminder of why I hate the DH. Kershaw coming in the pinch hit with the legitimate possibility of a game winning RBI (even if he made an out instead) was one of those fun things you just don’t see with the DH.
Thanks for the real research. It seems MLB has officially opined on this point before. And almost certainly after far more learned deliberation than we’ve given it here. Hitless games that end before 9 through no fault of the starting pitcher aren’t “no-hitters”; they’re a lesser beast.
Hell, maybe the future of MLB is every game is 7 innings. With “overtime” under altered rules limited to 9 innings in the event of a tie after 7. Somehow MLB will deal with the differences between not exactly comparable stats in the old world vs. the new. Just as we talk about the dead-ball and live-ball eras or the various heights of mounds, and or pre-, post-, or during steroids hitting records.
Adapt and overcome. It was ever thus.
A related question I don’t know the answer to … Assume a starting pitcher has a no-hitter going through 9 full innings. But the game is scoreless so they play a 10th inning with the starter still pitching. And in the 10th the opposing team gets a hit. Is that scored a no-hitter for the starter? If so, why? if not, why? What if instead the starter is pulled after 9 complete and it’s a reliever who is first hit against?
It never ceases to amaze me, how MLB can be so strict about something like this, but it’s OK for an intentional walk to consist of exactly zero pitches.
cf “Harvey Haddix.”
Jeff Bridich is out as the Rockies GM he was worthless but without new ownership I’m not sure the Rockies will ever be more than a cash cow to Monfort.
In other words, no, MLB doesn’t classify it as a no-hitter, even if it is a no-hitter after 9 innings.
Here are the data from 1916 through 2019. You may (or may not) be shocked to find out that more no-hitters and perfect games are lost in the first inning than in any other inning! In fact, no-hitters and perfect games are ruined in the first inning more often than not.
https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/comments/il83zv/innings_in_which_no_hitters_and_perfect_games/
FTR: I did not read the reddit, just your post here.
I think that’s a failure of definition, not a failure of pitching.
IMO if the concept is to have any meaning at all, a “No hitter lost in the first” is not a game whose first hit is scored in the first inning. It’s a game whose only hit(s) are scored in the first. IOW but for the first inning it was a no-hitter.
By the nonsense definition implied by your data, a game with hits against the starter in all 9 innings is also an almost “no hitter”; just one lost in the first, and second, and third, and fourth. As Maxwell Smart would have said:
Missed it by that much!
Not!
Nah. One of the broadcast guys for the Nationals always remarks, upon the other team earning their first hit of the game, “well, there goes the no-hitter”. The possibility of a no-hitter is lost then, regardless of inning, regardless of subsequent number of hits.
Yes. That’s clearly factual. I too make the joke about “there goes the no-hitter”, or the perfect game, or the shut-out or whatever whenever the opposition does something / anything for the first time.
But the fact no-hitters are lost in the first inning by that large margin is simply a consequence of the nature of accumulation, not of game play. Any statistic we care to name about discrete events which are cumulative will have the same shape of curve. There’s not a hint of baseball in that fact.
But an actually interesting statistic (to me at lest) would be what I suggested. Of 9-inning games pitched by a single pitcher where 8 innings were hitless, which inning contained the miscue? That would say something interesting about whether pitchers or batters were slower to get up to full skill, or got tired first or whatever. Or it may just be a random scatter indicating it’s just luck when the no-hitter falls.
I’d fine it especially interesting to see a game where there’s some bloop hit that should have been an error in the first inning and then a complete no hitter afterwards.
As long as we’re on the topic of weird no-hitters, I’ve always liked this one:
In 1917, when Babe Ruth was a pitcher for the Boston Red Sox, he walked the leadoff hitter, then got into an argument with the umpire, who ejected Ruth (the ejection then led to a fight, in which Ruth swung at the ump).
Ernie Shore was brought in to relieve Ruth. During the next at-bat, the runner at first was thrown out trying to steal second, and Shore then retired 26 straight for the no-hitter.
Kerry Wood’s famous 20-strikeout game nearly qualifies. The Astros’ only hit was in the third inning, and it was a grounder toward the direction the Cubs’ shortstop that probably could have been ruled an error.
The Braves get one hit in 14 innings yesterday, now they have 8 and 5 runs and it’s only the 5th inning versus the Cubs. This can be a funny game.
To me, it’s not “quasi”. He retired 27 straight men. Just because the first batter was already on first due to another pitcher shouldn’t affect HIS status. The fact is that he retired him and 26 more in a row. His feat was actually HARDER than an “ordinary” perfect game.
And the third baseman, Kevin Orie volunteered to take the error in order for Wood to get credit for a no-hitter.