Of No Hitters and Close Plays

Friday the Mariner’s pitching staff completed the 234^th no-hitter in baseball since 1900 it was a great accomplishment and pleased fans and players alike, but I am not going to simply talk about a fairly common feat in baseball that happened to my favorite team. Instead I am going to bring up some interesting storylines you can take from the actual game played and steer away from the No-no itself.

First and most obvious is that there were six pitchers used in the throwing of the no-hitter. This tied the most pitchers used in a no-hit baseball game and was the 10^th combined no-hitter in history. What distinguishes combined no-hitters as special? In today’s baseball, starters rarely go a full nine innings so one would think that it would be common to see a no-hitter of the starter and the closer or maybe even three pitchers. Why this doesn’t happen is baseball is an incredibly superstitious game and a game focused on its history. No manager wants to take out his starter when they have a no-no going because it would make them lose their place in the annals of baseball lore, they don’t want to take him out because that would ultimately lead to discussing the no-no. These things are not allowed by the unwritten rules of baseball and are rarely broken. This was an exception though as Kevin Millwood, who started the game, went out with an injury and the announcer talked about the possible no-no very early on.

When I got off work Friday night I immediately looked at the score of the Mariners’ game, I saw that it was the top of the 8^th and that there were no outs and runners on 1^st and 2^nd with the Mariners leading 1-0. I thought they were going to lose the game. I then looked down at the box and saw that a no-no was in progress. I then thought they were going to lose the game and still manage to throw a no-no. A bunt moved the runners over and then a shallow line drive and a strikeout ended the inning and threat but my worries about losing a no-hitter were still around until the game ended. This officially has happened only twice, once in 1964 and once in 1967, however there have been three such instances where the home team was leading and was getting no-hit so the game only went 8 ½ innings. These are not official no-hitters. Additionally there have been many games that have been no-hitters or perfect games that were blown in extra innings, some of them were losing efforts by the teams as well. These also do not count (including the 12 perfect innings pitched by Harvey Haddix of the Pirates in 1959, before he eventually lost the perfecto, no-no, and game in the 13^th).

In the 8^th inning when the Dodgers had runners on first and second with nobody out they decided to sac bunt the runners to second and third. This brings up an interesting aspect of close games and the sac bunt. The win expectancy of the Dodgers actually decreased after the runners were moved up. The sac bunt, when executed, made the Dodgers less likely to win the game. Now the change in probability is only a small .0011% change but what that means is Don Mattingly would have had a better shot of winning the game if he had just had three players try to get hits instead of trying to play small ball. Additionally with runners on second and third and one out, Eric Wedge decided not to intentionally walk the batter and load the bases. Although a common thought is to induce a double play to end the inning without giving up a run if Wedge had walked the batter his win expectancy would have dropped .0143%. In the span of two hitters we saw a common managerial move and a less common managerial move, the more common being the wrong move and the less common being the right move. With the game’s ending supporting the less common move in this specific instance. Both the sac bunt and the intentional walk are not thing smart managers should use, if they play the percentages and not their gut.

The last thing I want to talk about is the play in the 9^th inning where Dee Gordon was called out at first after an impressive play by Brendan Ryan. Ryan had been brought in that inning as a defensive replacement, and proved his value at defense, however there has been some controversy about the actual call at first. Gordon and many Dodgers fans claim that he was safe, Mariners fans say he was out, most everyone in the media has said that no matter how many times you look at the play it was inconclusive. This brings up remembrances of every no-no or perfecto ever. Johan Santana’s no-no just the other week we can clearly see that Carlos Beltran’s ball down the line was fair although ruled foul. When the Mariners got perfect gamed earlier this year, Brendan Ryan was sure that on the 3-2 pitch to end the game he held the check swing. And a few years ago when Armando Galarraga threw what would have been a perfect game Jim Joyce ruined it on the 27^th batter by calling the runner safe when he was clearly out. Every single no-no or perfecto has a controversial call and almost every baseball game has a controversial call, however, given that in normal games when a defender makes a great play and it is close at first the umpires tend to give the call to the defense I think this was the correct call for the game. One last note about close plays. The common phrase you hear is “tie goes to the runner,” but is that actually true? I looked through the MLB rule book and found instances referring to runners making their way to bases and when to call them safe and when to call them out. Here’s what I discovered.

Rule 6.05 part j: “A batter is out when  — After a third strike or after he hits a fair ball, he or first base is tagged before he touches first base.”

Rule 7.01 “A runner acquires the right to an unoccupied base when he touches it before he is out.”

These rules seem to contradict each other in the very slightest way. 6.05 says the fielders must get the runner out before he touches base and 7.01 says the runner must touch base before the fielders get him out. One puts the onus on the runner the other on the fielder. What this means is that according to MLB rules ties do not favor one over the other and that in their minds there are no such things as ties, but if there were ties it is up to the umpire to let his preference win out.

-David Ringold