Coming off the heels of the 21st perfect game in Major League Baseball. Chicago White Sox pitcher Philip Humber became a member of the perfect game club on April 21st against the Seattle Mariners. You would think that with a perfect game being pitched, we would hear about it. Well, that's not so much the case anymore. Why is that? I have looked into recent pitchers that have thrown no hitters and perfect games. Combined, there has been 25 altogether pitched since 1999. Here are the names of the last 25 no hitters and perfect games collectively.
Eric Milton, Hideo Nomo, Bud Smith, AJ Burnett, Derek Lowe, Kevin Millwood, Astros (The team collectively pitched a no hitter against the Yankees), Randy Johnson, Anibal Sanchez, Clay Buchholz, Jon Lester, Carlos Zambrano, Jonathan Sanchez, Ubaldo Jimenez, Dallas Braden, Matt Garza, Francisco Liriano, Ervin Santana, Philip Humber, Mark Buehrle (2), Justin Verlander (2), and Roy Halladay (2).
Looking at the list, there is a lot of name players on the list, and plenty of people you look at and think either a "has been or a never will be". Even some of the guys that have thrown a no hitter and/or perfect game, you take a look at and their opponent was below the league batting average. Lowe, Nomo, Burnett, Santana and Verlander did it against sub-par offensive teams. But you also look though at their careers, they were dominant throughout.
So that brings me to this point, many of the guys that have thrown a no hitter or perfect game are no namers, and they are occurring at a higher rate against sup bar talent, and in this era of baseball, what is asked of the pitchers in their starts isn't like what it was in the past. Lowe, Johnson, Lester, Zambrano, Halladay, Verlander and Santana have had a decent career to say the least. The rest of the pitchers are players that had a promising career or were guys that caught a break against a terrible team. The remaining names (18) I could justify had flashes of talent and just never panned out in the end. 10 of those 18 names, those pitchers went up against teams that had a batting average below the league average for the year. For example, league average right now is .249. Philip Humber pitched against the Mariners, whose 22nd in the MLB with a .239 average. Another, Dallas Braden...remember him? (Don't lie, you really don't), yea he pitched a perfect game against the Rays in 2010. The Rays average that year, .247, good for 27th in the MLB and ten points below the average, where did his career go? Too many times, we see no namers pitch against weak offensive teams and catch a break and are never heard from again.
We can thank the media as well for blowing the idea of having a no hitter not really mean anything. 2010, we had six combined no hitters and perfect games. When we start reading up on the ticker of a pitcher going six innings deep with no hits, should we really be really be put on alert? The fact that at one point, there was such a focus on when the next no hitter would come down, it became ridiculous, and thus not celebrated as much as in the past. Nine no hitters and/or perfect games since the start of the 2009 season and inferior talent doesn't help the fact that we are seeing these accolades be handed out like candy.
SO, how does this illustrious achievement get it's meaning back? Simple, pitchers that we can look to, who are going to be around and be dominant, make it happen from time to time, such as Verlander doing so in 2007 and 2011, Halladay twice in 2010 or you studs like Randy Johnson stepping up to the rubber and taking command. Pitchers that have this breakout games and then disappear are apart of the reason why it has lost it's luster.
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