A no-hitter is one of the two most incredible feats a pitcher can accomplish, second to only a perfect game. A no-hitter is when a pitcher allows no runners to reach safely on a hit. They may allow a walk, a hit batter, or even an error, but the pitcher must retire 27 batters without allowing a hit. It is improbable, to the point of being impossible.
There have been approximately 233,000 Major league baseball games played, and of these only 313 of these games have been no-hitters. That means that approximately only 0.13% of games are no-hitters. When averaged out, there are on average two no-hitters per season since the MLB was founded in 1876.
So far, during the 2021 season, pitchers have thrown eight no-hitters, tying the record for no-hitters in one season. The only other year where eight Major League Baseball pitchers threw no-hitters was 1884, the first-year pitching overhand was made legal. This causes many to wonder, “Why is this number so curiously high?” The answer: sticky substances.
This year, Major League Baseball has been racked by its biggest scandal since the steroids era of the 1990s. This scandal is even larger than the Houston Astros’ trash-can-banging scandal of 2017-2019.
In 2019, a record number of home runs were hit. In response to this, pitchers league-wide began adding foreign, sticky substances to their hands in order to grip the ball better. That may sound like a minor issue, but foreign substances have immense repercussions.
When a pitcher has a better grip on the ball, he is able to increase the rate at which the ball spins. When the ball spins more, the pitcher’s velocity increases and their curveballs and breaking balls break harder across the plate. When the ball is thrown faster and breaks more, the batter has less time to react and the pitch is harder to hit. Because of this, we have seen a dramatic uptick in strikeout rates and the high number of no-hitters thrown this year.
In early June 2021, the MLB announced that umpires would begin regularly checking pitchers for sticky substances and could eject pitchers from games for violation of the ban on sticky substances. The MLB banned sticky substances years ago; however, pitchers would typically only be checked upon request from the opposing team’s manager. Such checks happened very rarely. Because every team had pitchers using substances this season, managers wouldn’t request checks of opposing players knowing that their own pitchers could be checked.
On June 21, Umpires began checking pitchers for foreign substances. Some pitchers, most notably Max Scherzer, would even be checked several times a game. These checks led to a handful of suspensions. However, after these checks began, pitchers’ spin rates began to fall and the velocity on their fastballs decreased.
As previously mentioned, eight no-hitters have been thrown in 2021. The curious factor about this is that six of the no-hitters were thrown before June 21 — in the first month and a half of the season. Only one true no-hitter has been thrown in the subsequent three months, along with one combined, team no-hitter.
This dramatic decline in the rate at which no-hitters are thrown can give baseball fans solace in that hopefully this no-hitter epidemic has been eradicated and the playing field has been leveled for batters and pitchers alike.
Editor’s note: The Milwaukee Brewers pitched a team no-hitter this last weekend, pushing the season total to 9 no-hitters, an MLB record.