No-hitters broken up in the ninth inning

[ElvisL1ves]

Curt Schilling was the latest to do it. Yesterday, he had a no-hitter through 8 2/3 innings in Oakland, one batter to go, hung a fastball and lost it (held on to win the game, though). It could be my imagination, but it does seem that there are a heckuva lot more no-hitters broken up in the ninth, especially with 2 out, than actually get completed. Pitchers just get nervous, or perhaps start to wonder why their teammates start to pointedly avoid talking to them about the seventh, or whatever.

Are there any records of the number of 8+ inning no-hitters that fail?

[Kid_A_1]

Well, to start, 9 perfect games have been lost on the 27th batter.

Link

I’ll try to find some info on no hitters.

[Rysto]

@ElvisL1ves

Curt Schilling was the latest to do it. Yesterday, he had a no-hitter through 8 2/3 innings in Oakland, one batter to go, hung a fastball and lost it (held on to win the game, though).

[hijack]How does one “hang a fastball”? My understanding is that a hanging pitch is a pitch that fails to break – so one could hang a curveball, or a slider, or a cutter, but how does one hang a non-breaking pitch?[/hijack]

[ElvisL1ves]

Okay, he *grooved * it then. After shaking off a slider.

[David_Simmons]

This wasn’t a case of 8-2/3 innings and then boom. But in the early 1950’s Robin Roberts of the Philladelphia Phillies pitched a perfect game, not a man on base. Unfortunately for him, the first man up hit the first ball pitched for a home run.

[ElvisL1ves]

Thanks, Kid A. Schilling’s would have been perfect too, except for a Lugo error.

David, might as well mention Ernie Shore’s perfect game in relief, and Harvey Haddix’s 12-inning one that MLB won’t even recognize. Thanks for the trivia tidbit, and the reminder to the younguns that there was a Robin Roberts before the one on ESPN.

[David_Simmons]

@ElvisL1ves

Thanks, Kid A. Schilling’s would have been perfect too, except for a Lugo error.

David, might as well mention Ernie Shore’s perfect game in relief, and Harvey Haddix’s 12-inning one that MLB won’t even recognize. Thanks for the trivia tidbit, and the reminder to the younguns that there was a Robin Roberts before the one on ESPN.

Roberts’ game was against the Cincinnati Reds on May 13, 1954. Cite Not the most authoritative cite but all I can find on short notice.

[RealityChuck]

@ElvisL1ves

Curt Schilling was the latest to do it. Yesterday, he had a no-hitter through 8 2/3 innings in Oakland, one batter to go, hung a fastball and lost it (held on to win the game, though). It could be my imagination, but it does seem that there are a heckuva lot more no-hitters broken up in the ninth, especially with 2 out, than actually get completed.

Probably your imagination. One-hitters are not all that unusual, and those are just no-hitters that were broken up at some point. A batter that gives a single hit in the third inning has had his no-hitter broken up long before anyone notices it.

But if a batter carries a no-hitter into the 9th, people take note.

Back in the 70s, the UPI sports line put out a special alert if any pitcher had a no hitter for seven innings.

[Freddy_the_Pig]

@ElvisL1ves

It could be my imagination, but it does seem that there are a heckuva lot more no-hitters broken up in the ninth, especially with 2 out, than actually get completed.

It’s your imagination. Between 1961 and 2006, 240 pitchers took a no-hitter into the 9th inning, and 118 (49%) finished the job.

The league batting average is about .270, so by random chance roughly 0.730.730.73 = 39% of eight-inning no-hitters would be completed. (Obviously this ignores such nuances as walks, errors, and double plays.) The actual figure of 49% is more than 39%, but then you would expect pitchers who pitch no-hitters for eight innings to be a little bit better than average.