Welcome to the Club, Jon Lester
Posted by Chris J. on May 19, 2008
Neat thing you can do with PI - generate a list of all no-hitters from Opening Day 1956 until yesterday. So tommorrow Jon Lester will be on this.
(looks it over) Only includes regular season but with another search you can get the entire post-season list. All one of them.
May 20th, 2008 at 8:29 am
I haven't exactly done *complete* research on this stat, but here's a factiod that seems to get swept under the rug:
Jim Perry was the losing pitcher in THREE no-hitters! Vida Blue in 1970 (vs. Minnesota), and Nolan Ryan and Steve Busby in 1973 (both vs. Detroit).
Phil Niekro was the losing pitcher to Don Wilson in 1967 and Ken Holzman in 1969.
Would anyone care to do a more extensive search for multiple no-hit losers?
May 20th, 2008 at 8:35 am
Here's an angle for someone to pursue. Not counting Johnny Vander Meer's back-to-back no-hitters (which obviously was before Retrosheet was even a gleam in someone's eye) and multiple no-hitters by the same pitcher (Ryan comes to mind) what is the closest period of time for a team to have no-hitters? Or I guess phrased better, what is the shortest length of time between no-hitters for a team by different pitchers?
May 20th, 2008 at 8:56 am
Well, back on May 5 and 6, 1917, Ernie Koob and Bob Groom of the St. Louis Browns threw no-hitters against the White Sox. I can't use the word "consecutive", though, because Groom's was in game 2 of a doubleheader.
May 20th, 2008 at 11:09 am
The list of no-hitters isn't quite correct, since it includes a few games that didn't go 9 innings.
May 21st, 2008 at 12:02 am
statboy is right - and wrong. MLB came up with some moronic defintion of no-hitter some years back which ruled out a few of the ones on the list Chris made. But in my opinion if you pitch a complete game and don't give up any hits, you've pitched a no-hitter. I'm glad to see Chris included all the ones MLB ruled out (especially the one Andy Hawkins lost, 4-0).
May 21st, 2008 at 12:13 am
I can't find anything on multiple no-hit losers, but the record for being home plate umpire at the most no-hitters is 6, held by Silk O'Loughlin in the early 1900s. Bill Dinneen, Bill Klem, and Harry Wendelstedt each called 5. Details at http://www.retrosheet.org/nohit_umpire.htm (I think they're using the MLB definition of no-hitter).
May 21st, 2008 at 11:23 am
Possibly overlooked is that in Lester's no-hitter, Jason Varitek officially broke the record for most no-hitters caught. Jeff Torborg (Koufax, Singer, Ryan) and Alan Ashby (K.Forsch, Ryan, Scott) had 3. There may be more before 1956 (Berra?) that had 3.
Varitek now has 4 official no-hitters (Nomo, Lowe, Buchholz & Lester). He's got a 5th that's unofficial, as Devern Hansack's 5 inning no-hitter against the Orioles doesn't count.
May 21st, 2008 at 11:45 am
Just some other no-hit tidbits (since 1956):
Eight teams have been no-hit twice in one season: 1960 Phillies, 1965 Cubs, 1967 Tigers, 1971 Reds, 1973 Tigers, 1977 Angels, 1996 Rockies, and 2001 Padres. No team has been no-hit three times in one season.
The Yankees have had the longest team hitting streak (45 years), having gone from 1958 to 2003 without being on the short end of a no-no.
The longest current streak is held by the Cubs, who haven't been no-hit since Koufax's perfect game in 1965 (43 years and counting). The Reds and Pirates are at 37 years, and the Phillies are at 30 years.
The Cubs owe a lot to Billy Williams for keeping that streak alive. Five times in his Cubs career, Williams was the only player on his team to get a hit in a game. And in one of those games (09-05-69 vs. Pittsburgh), Williams got the only FOUR hits off of Steve Blass! (That has to be a record, yes? Most hits by one player when the rest of his team took a collective oh-fer?)
May 21st, 2008 at 12:38 pm
wboening2 - the Yankees went 45 years without being no hit. However, their hitting streak was not that long. On July 12 1990 Melido Perez no hit them in a rain shortened game. Not an official no hitter, but the end of a hitting streak. (I know what you meant, but I figured it was worth a mention.)
May 21st, 2008 at 12:55 pm
Believe Ray Schalk caught 3 no-hitters.
May 21st, 2008 at 10:37 pm
The complete list of catchers who caught no-hitters is at http://members.tripod.com/bb_catchers/catchers/catchnoh.htm
Schalk caught 4.
An interesting thing about the 1958 no-hitter against the Yankees is that the pitcher was Hoyt Wilhelm, in one of the few years that he was used much as a starter. Another interesting thing is that the Yankees won the pennant despite being no-hit - that doesn't happen a lot.
I have a book that lists the opposing pitcher for each (MLB definition) no-hitter up to 1992. It doesn't say whether "opposing pitcher" means "opposing starter" or "guy who got the decision for the other team." I can confirm that Jim Perry was the opposing pitcher in three no-hitters, as noted above. I found several men who were opposing pitchers in two no-hitters: Ed Walsh, Slim Harriss, Chuck Dobson, Charlie Hough, Tommy Bond, Chris Short, Phil Niekro, and Vida Blue. Blue is the only one I found who was an opposing pitcher in a no-hitter in each league: Jim Bibby, Tex vs Oak, 30 July 73, and Jerry Reuss, LA vs SF, 27 Jun 80.
May 22nd, 2008 at 10:21 am
One of Schalk's is no longer counted as a no-hitter (don't remember and too lazy to check the circumstances why).
The '03 Yankees also won the pennant. As did the '90 A's, and the '81 Dodgers, both of which were no-hit. I stopped checking after that. I doubt it's so unlikely for a no-hit team to win the pennant, any more unlikely than that they get shutout -- it's only one game after all. Wouldn't expect it to happen often but obviously it's not unique.
May 22nd, 2008 at 10:37 am
Looking at the Encyclopedia of Catchers link posted by Gerry in #11, there were many who caught 3 no-nos before 1956. I also noticed that Charles Johnson and Johnny Edwards had 3 after 1956. This would have saved me a lot of time (and been more precise).
Ron Hassey only caught 2 no-hitters, but they were both perfect games.
May 23rd, 2008 at 12:27 pm
Regarding Gerry's comment on Andy Hawkins, there were 3 other games on the list where the team that gave up no hits lost the game: Ken Johnson for Houston on 1964-04-23, Steve Barber/Stu Miller for Baltimore on 1967-04-30, and Matt Young for Boston on 1992-04-12. Johnson's had no ER (like Hawkins), while the others had one or more ER.
PI can also easily generate perfect pitching performances (allowing no baserunners). Requiring 5 IP or more, this gives the usual perfect complete games list (since 1956), but also includes other good outings, often by relievers.
Mark Williamson's game on 1989-04-12 is interesting in that he got a BS for pitching 5 perfect innings, the only such game on the list with a bad outcome for the pitcher (L or BS). He came on in the 9th with the bases loaded and no outs and induced a GDP, but the tying run scored. I think this is also the longest perfect pitching performance since 1956 where the BF is less than 3 times the IP (thanks to double plays, etc.). That's harder to check, but I checked individually all possible numbers of IP (including thirds of innings) up to 13, so I think it's right.
The only pitcher since 1956 to allow no base runners and lose the game is
Bill Landis on 1969-06-29. Think about it, he didn't allow a runner and yet was credited with the loss...! What happened was he pitched to one batter, who got on by FC. On the play Landis himself made throwing error attempting to make a force out at 2nd or 3rd base. Landis was then removed from the game, but the player who got on by FC was eventually the winning run for the other team, giving Landis the loss. I guess a runner who gets on by a FC is not counted as a BR for the pitcher? That makes sense, since usually on a FC someone else is put out, and the number of men on base does not increase. The extra man on base was due to the error. And I suppose an error by anyone would have had the same result, but it's poetic justice that it was Landis' error that lead to his getting the loss.
May 23rd, 2008 at 12:31 pm
I messed up the link for Landis' game in the last post.