The Worst No-Hitter

Yesterday evening I was packing and decided to throw on a baseball game as background noise. Since the Yankees were playing on the West Coast, I went for the Arizona-Tampa Bay contest. I turned off the game in the third inning, after Edwin Jackson weaseled his way out of a bases-loaded jam. I thought nothing of the game until I saw on Baseball Tonight that he had thrown a no-hitter! My first thought was, is this the worst no-hitter of all time?

Jackson walked eight batters in the game, and threw a career-high 149 pitches, just 79 of them for strikes. At one point in the third inning, the Win Probability actually favored Tampa Bay, thanks to Jackson walking the bases loaded! With two outs in the ninth, Jackson walked pinch hitter Willy Aybar on four pitches, which was Aybar's seventh walk of the season. No doubt about it, Jackson pitched rather poorly and still picked up the no-no. Is it possible to have a worse no hitter than Jackson?

First of all, some ground rules: Major League Baseball defines a no-hitter as a "a game in which a pitcher, or pitchers, gives up no hits while pitching at least nine innings. A pitcher may give up a run or runs so long as he pitches nine innings or more and does not give up a hit."

This excludes some rather infamous no-hit performances, such as this one by Andy Hawkins, who allowed four (unearned) runs in a 4-0 loss while pitching for the hapless 1990 Yankees. In a baseball-reference play index search, I asked for games of 9 IP or more since 1920 with zero hits. I then sorted this list by ascending Game Score, a measure invented by Bill James to assign a single number to a starting pitchers' performance. The best nine-inning performance since 1920, according to Game Score, is Kerry Wood's 20K game in 1998, with a score of 105. The measure is very results-oriented, since it places high value on the number of innings pitched and the number of runs-- shutouts are practically guaranteed to be above 80.

Click the link for the results, which show Jackson's game last night to be the fourth-worst no-hitter on record, in Game Score. Three games tied with a game score one unit worse:

George Culver, July 29, 1968 Pitching for the Reds, his second of what would be five teams in the pre-free agency era, Culver was nothing short of mediocre in this game, for someone who pitched a no-hitter. He walked four in the game, but faced 34 batters, one of the extra men (Dick Allen) getting aboard thanks to a throwing error by third baseman Tony Perez, and reaching second on another error by shortstop Woody Woodward on the same play. Allen then reached third base on a groundout and scored on a sac-fly by Cookie Rojas.

Culver allowed another unearned baserunner in the third inning, with Phillies' starter Chris Short reaching on Catchers Interference by Pat Corrales. Culver then retired eleven straight before walking two men with two outs in the sixth, needing a strikeout to get out of that jam. Culver's final two baserunners got on via walk to open the eighth inning, but Culver induced some ground balls to get out of that one, and breezed through the ninth for the no-hitter.

Bill James calculated how likely it was for each pitcher to have thrown a no-hitter, and George Culver came out as one of the ten men least likely to have a no-no.

Ken Holtzman- August 19, 1969. Of the three no-hitters with a Game Score of 84, Holtzman's seems the most impressive. Facing Phil Neikro and staked to a 3-0 lead after the first inning, Holtzman walked just three in his no-hitter. The reason this game has such a low game score is that Holtzman struck out precisely zero hitters! Not exactly Nolan Ryan, Holtzman struck out just 5.0 per nine innings in his career, despite playing in an extremely pitcher-friendly era. Only one other no-hitter since 1920 has featured zero strikeouts, by Sad Sam Jones in 1923.

Sabermetrics has taught us in the Gospel of Three True Outcomes; that a pitcher can only (really) control three results of an at bat: a strikeout, a walk, and a home run. There are fine tunings in there, such as GB/FB rate, and his own fielding ability, but once the ball is put in play, a lot is left up to his defense. On that day in 1969, the Cubs' defense shined, and Holtzman never allowed more than one baserunner in an inning. Twelve groundouts, twelve flyouts, and three pop-outs formed an even split among the batted balls in this game. Interestingly, while giving up fly-balls tends to influence home-run rate and therefore is bad for the overall success of a pitcher, if one wants to pitch a no-hitter, a flyball is far more likely to turn into an out.

The shimmering defense was on display no finer than on the last out of the seventh inning, in which outfielder Billy Williams climbed the ivy at Wrigley to pluck a home run away from Henry Aaron. Holtzman wrote in Chicago Cubs: Memorable Stories of Cubs Baseball that the home fans were reminding him that he had a no-hitter every inning following the third (so much for jinxes!) Holtzman would go on to throw another no-hitter two years later for the Cubs, and was later elected to the Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.

Joe Cowley, September 19, 1986 From the box-score, this is my vote for the worst official no-hitter on record. Cowley registered seven walks (and eight strikeouts), and among the 145 no-hitters on record with Game Scores below 100, Cowley's is only one of two in which the no-no-man gave up an earned run. Much like Jackson, Cowley walked the bases loaded to start the sixth, and then gave up three straight fly balls, the second of which scored Reggie Jackson. Cowley also had two men on in the third, and like Jackson walked a man in the ninth, though this runner was erased on the game-ending double play.

In fact, Cowley threw the worst no-hiter of all time, and then never won another big league game. He lost his next six decisions and was out of baseball within a year of this game. Hopefully, Edwin Jackson can avoid this same fate.

Sabathia Victim of Obsolete Scoring System

This afternoon, Milwaukee Brewers' ace CC "Don't Put No Periods" Sabathia threw an absolute gem. A complete game shutout, giving up just one hit, with eleven strikeouts and just three walks-- a great game in this day of relief pitchers. His Game Score of 96 is the best of the season, beating even John Lester's no-hitter. And yet, the Brewers will be appealing the judgment of the game, because they feel Sabathia should have gotten the no-no. The lone hit came in the sixth inning, when Andy LaRoche hit a dribbler back to the mound. Sabathia picked up the ball, was about to fire to first, and dropped it. Bob Webb, veteran official scorer, immediately scored it a hit, explaining that LaRoche was 2/3 up the baseline before Sabathia even bent over. The Brewers think Sabathia was robbed.

Before we get to my take on it, let's run through a truly awful paragraph in the AP story:

"Despite the Brewers' protests, the play in question is routinely called
a hit and fielders often get angry when they are called for errors on
easier plays."

This is my first, and most important point: Errors are stupid. I recently went to a baseball game and had to explain my favorite sport to a number of Chinese students who were watching the game for the first time. Despite the language barrier they were able to pick up the vague idea of the game. But when they heard my explanation in response to "What does the E mean on the scoreboard," they looked at me funny. Now, in the progress of an individual game, it may make sense to assign blame for a particular play, in the process of deciding why an out was not made.

What bothers me is that errors are used in two ways that hide the true value of players. Most directly, they affect the defender, whose number of errors has almost no bearing on the number of outs he actually does make. While advanced fielding metrics are far from perfect, they at least make an effort at quantifying the level of skill in out-making a defender has. Errors, on the other hand, are arbitrarily decided by some dude in a booth. Second of all, the "earned-run" is a bastard child of the error, and has led talent evaluaters astray in believing that some runs are more important than others, when judging a pitcher. Ok, rant over, let's move on to the next sentence:

"The Associated Press polled eight writers who have
reported on the majors for 10 years or more, and six would have called
it a hit."

Great job, Associated Press! Way to immediately poll a bunch of sportswriters about what an official scorer should have done. I don't care if they polled eight construction workers who have watched baseball for 10 years or more, they would have been equally qualified to speculate about a completely different profession whose primary function is to make judgment calls on baseball games. Two of these judgments are errors and wins, which are both stupid, primarily because they are subjective. Still, Bob Webb's job is to judge baseball games, and the baseball writer's job is to write about baseball games. Why are these somehow overlapping, to the AP?

"Also, Sabathia pitched with almost no pressure with a multiple-run lead
in the seventh, eighth and ninth innings, which wouldn't have been the
case if he had a no-hitter going and every late-innings pitch would
have been critical."

Ah, clutchitudiness. Or something similar, I suppose. Sabathia shouldn't be credited with a no-hitter because if he knew he were pitching a no-hitter, the whole rest of the game would have changed, somehow! Sabathia would be pressing, or some other silly notion. Well, what if, after the sixth inning, Ryan Braun assured Sabathia that he was going to make a big stink about that error the rest of the game? Then, Sabathia would be under pressure to continue to hold the Pirates to just one hit, so they could get on with the protesting! Isn't that the same amount of pressure?

That was just about the dumbest three consecutive sentences I've ever read from the Associated Press. I guess they all must have gone to UNC journalism school.... Last month, the Immaculate Inning recognized those pitchers who had been "robbed by their defense," losing a perfect game because of an error. It's too bad that Baseball-reference.com doesn't have a search feature for "plays that should have been errors but weren't." But, there have been 48 one-hitters since 2000. If just a fraction of them featured a hit that should have been called an error, how many more no-hitters would that add to the annals of baseball?

In the earlier post, I dismissed a few near-perfect games because the pitcher himself was responsible for the lone baserunner, and this case may. Even if the hit were changed to an error, the onus would be on Sabathia. It brings up an interesting point; if you, the pitcher, are in a no-hitter, and you think that someone may get an infield hit, do you drop the ball on purpose? Do you fling it into the stands? One does not have to go far to find precedent for a no-hitter featuring an error by the pitcher-- John Lester had an error in his no-hitter earlier this year. But, the error was on a pickoff throw and did not allow a baserunner.

The last time a no-hitter featured a runner reaching on an error was for Anibal Sanchez of the Marlins on September 6, 2006. In the fifth inning, Carlos Quentin reached on a throwing error by Miguel Cabrera. Before that, it was Cal Ripken, Jr reaching on a throwing error by Shea Hillenbrand in the second inning of Hideo Nomo's no-hitter for the Red Sox in 2001. Kirk Gibson dropped a fly ball in the fifth inning of Bret Saberhagen's no-hitter in 1991. That last one is included in this article by Baseball Digest recording questionable no-hitters in baseball history. Apparently the ball just tipped the top of Gibson's glove as he leaped for the liner off the bat Dan Pasqua. Initially called a hit, it was later changed to an error by the official scorer. Phil Rizzuto remembered a similar occurance in a no-hitter by Virgil Trucks in 1958.

In all, I think what this demonstrates is the power of the official scorer, regarding baseball immortality. A no-hitter is a big deal, and it's a shame that remembering such an event is dependent not upon the pitcher responsible, but upon a man in a booth high above the field. Sabathia is a great pitcher and with his ability to get deep into games, he'll certainly have another chance at an official no-hitter. Unless, of course, the Brewers make his arm fall off trying to get their money's worth on their half-season rental....