The year of the No Hitter

by Steve

No its not just you, I've noticed too, there have been a lot of no hitters or close to no hitters already this year and its June 20th. Well maybe getting to the 7th or 8th inning giving up no hits to you isn't that big of a deal but it seems to be occurring with regularity in the season that is 2007.

April 11th, 2007
"King" Felix Hernandez of the Seattle Mariners starts a trend throwing 7 no hit innings before a cheap 8th inning single by J.D. Drew. The king completed the game allowing that single hit for the victory.

April 18th, 2007

Mark Buehrle of the the Chicago White Sox no hits the Texas Rangers in a 6-0 romping in US Cellular Field. Buehrle faced the minimum batters walking one but picking him off during the next at bat.

May 5th, 2007
Chien-Ming Wang of the beloved New York Yankees loses a no hit bid in the 8th with one out. Ben Broussard of Seattle Mariners broke up the no-no with a dinger. This followed only 3 days earlier by phenom Phil Hughes who had a no hitter in the 7th before leaving with an injury.

June 7th, 2007
Curt Schilling of the Boston Red Sox loses his bid for a no hitter with 8 and 2/3rds already in the works. The potential no hitter, on the road, facing the Oakland Athletics in a day game with the sun shining would have been Schilling's first of his career. God damn Shannon Stewart.

June 12th, 2007
Justin Verlander of the Detroit Tigers throws a no hitter in interleague action facing the Milwaukee Brewers. It was the first no hitter in Detroit since 1952. Verlander reached triple digits in the 9th inning. On that night, he could have thrown a day/night double header and no one was getting a hit.

June 17th
Carlos Zamrano of the Chicago Cubs loses a no hitter in the 8th to the San Diego Padres. The hit came with one out, but didn't leave the infield. It wasn't meant to be any way, big Z gave up a dinger in the 9th and lost the game giving up only two hits.

There were a few more that lasted into the 7th but I decided to stick to the 8th inning and beyond. Of the two no hitters thus far this year both came from American League teams although one was against a National League opponent. Both were at home and both pitchers enjoyed 4+ run leads.

This "outbreak" of no hitters is a bit perplexing considering:

• Anibal Sanchez was the only pitcher to accomplish the feat of a no-no in 2006 and that didn't occur until September.
• Prior to Sanchez there was a break of 2 years and 4 months since the last no hitter in May of 2004 which was actually a perfect game, by Randy Johnson.
• Before Beuhrle in April, the last no-no in the American League was Derek Lowe in April of 2003.
• The last season two American league pitchers threw no hitters occurred in the same season was in 1999, Eric Milton, and David Cone.
  

Perhaps the drought of the past 7 seasons is over, and the "juiced ball" era died with it. Who knows, maybe all the steroid talk and love affair with the home run that followed and then the subsequent fall out influenced baseball's brass to de-juice the baseballs. I predict this trend of near no-no's and pitching dominance continues this season and at least one more no hitter will be thrown in 2007. All we need now is a perfect game and we'll be set.

links
mlb no hitter article
no hitters