Clutch 22-2016: No, No-No Doesn’t Mean Much

You would think that when a pitcher throws a no-hitter it’s a “Great” accomplishment. Though the pitcher might dub it as so, it’s really not. It’s sort of kind of a great accomplishment for the individual and a rare enough occurrence that it makes the news, but a no-hitter is generally a day of luck. The strikeouts help and are pitcher positive, but the rest of the outs are typically guys hitting the ball at people. A perfect-game is similar, but with a little additional flair since no walks or errors included in the outing.

Before thinking this is more statistical malarkey, the thought around the luck of the no-no is more personnel based. Take a look at the list of pitchers who recently threw a no-hitter of perfect game. You will notice that most, not all, of the names are people you never heard of. Well, at least you never heard of them before they tossed the no-hitter. And then you quickly forgot about them shortly after.

Sure some of the greats tossed a no-hitter. Though there is no disputing that, there is also no disputing that more great pitchers did not throw a no-hitter than did. Now, that said, it’s very likely that these great pitchers without a no-hitter under their belt likely tossed a bunch of one-hitters, two-hitters and shut-outs. The one-hitter, though it doesn’t come with the glamor or a no-hitter, is if you think about just as good with possible one ball being hit an inch or two to the left or right.

Of course in the last two seasons (2015-2016) this theory holds little water. Jake Arrieta and Max Scherzer both tossed two during that time period! Wow, that actually is amazing and something that likely hadn’t happen before or will happen again. Scherzer took it one level higher by getting *both* of his no-hitters in the same year! These two guys are clearly star players and the exceptions to the rule.  It’s very likely that these special pitchers whip up more of these achievements during the course of their careers.  Clutch’s bet is that Arrieta chalks up more though.

Other “Current” no-hitters tossed over the past few years were by Mike Fiers, Hiashi Iwakuma, Chris Heston, Henderson Alvarez and Phillip Humber (He threw a perfect game!). My guess is you may not have heard of some or all of these guys. One of them only had a three plus year career in MLB and one will definitely go down in history as the worse guy to ever throw a no-hitter. It’s clear that none of them are or will be household names. Most of them had or are having bad pitching careers and will hang their hat on that one lucky start.

Pedro J. Martinez is arguably the best pitcher of the current era. As a minimum he’s deep in the conversation like the age old question of is Michael Jordan the best NBA player ever?  Pedro J. was a first-ballet hall-of-famer and has phenomenal career stats. Pedro J. had a 7-year season run where he was almost literally unhittable. That includes two seasons with a sub-two ERA and five seasons with a sub-one WHIP. Pedro is referred to as Pedro J. because during part of his stellar career there was another pitcher kicking around by the name of Pedro “A”. Martinez. “A” was a mop-up man for around five seasons or so.

You probably guessed by now why Pedro J. was brought up and his career outlined. It’s because he has zero no-hitters during his historic and likely never to be duplicated career. For as many complete game shut-outs to his credit (17) he always surrendered at least one hit. There are two interesting footnotes to Pedro’s career of no no-no’s. The first is that there is no-hitter in the family. Pedro’s brother Ramon Martinez, who had a decent but forgettable career, tossed a no-hitter in 1995 for the Dodgers. At that point Pedro J., who also started his career in Hollywood, was around gone and in Montreal.

The second footnote is as far as Mr. Clutch is concerned two of the more interesting outings in baseball history. Pedro J. pitched a nine-inning “Perfect game” for the Montreal Expos in 1995 versus the San Diego Padres. The issue though was that the Expos had scored no runs in the game to support the Martinez effort. Pedro J. took the mound in the 10^th inning and gave up a lead-off hit (The Expos won the game in 10). The other was a year previous where Pedro J. had tossed seven perfect innings against the Reds. In the top of the eight he hit Reggie Sanders with a pitch. The reason it’s a footnote is that Sanders charged the mound inciting a brawl after the HBP. It’s probably a pretty good guess that Sanders was the only person in the stadium or watching the game on TV that thought Pedro J. did it on purpose!

Then there is the infamous Armando Galarraga game. Who? Exactly, that’s the point. Galarraga was one out shy of a perfect game when the 27^th batter he faced hit a typical ground-ball that should have been the making of history. Well it was, but the history made turned out to be the worst call in no-hitter history. The batter in question was “Out” at first by a country mile, but called “Safe” by the umpire. Galarraga lost the perfect game due to human error that had nothing to do with him or another player in the game. Before you lose too much sleep over this, Armando had one of the worst careers in starting pitcher MLB history. His career was three years deep at the time of this game, and ended two seasons later with a career ERA around 5.00 and eight more losses than wins over the span.  

What’s your favorite no-hitter story? The fact that Nolan Ryan has seven (7) no-no’s and (12) one-hit almost no-no’s? There are likely folks out there that think Nolan can still throw one today at 70 years old! Or how about Dock Ellis who tossed a no-hitter while under the influence of LSD. It was such an interesting story that a full-length documentary was made about it. Fill in your blank of one of those or Johan Santana, Doc Gooden, Jim Abbott or the Forsch brothers. Or possible the one no-hitter tossed by Kid Clutch back in 1981!