The 17-Inning No-Hitter. May 10, 1909, started out to be a lousy day in Winchester, Kentucky. A cold rain fell during the morning and, although it stopped about noon, the day continued unseasonably chilly for the blue grass country in May, with dark, heavy clouds threatening to unload again at any moment.
You've almost certainly never heard of it -- in fact, it very nearly never happened at all. And yet, not a single professional pitcher -- on any field, in any town -- has managed to match Fred Toney's start on May 10, 1909: 17 innings pitched, one walk, 19 strikeouts, no hits.
Fred Toney & Hippo Vaughn in 1917. Both pitchers had no hitters through 9 innings.
During the 1988 Major League Baseball season, pitcher Orel Hershiser of the Los Angeles Dodgers set the MLB record for consecutive scoreless innings pitched. Over 59 consecutive innings, opposing hitters did not score a run against Hershiser. During the streak, he averted numerous high-risk scoring situations.
There have been two instances when a pitcher has had a perfect game through nine frames, but then lost it in extra innings. In 1959, Harvey Haddix of the Pittsburgh Pirates pitched twelve perfect innings before losing the no-hitter and the game to the Milwaukee Braves in the 13th.
But, as always, there are exceptions. On April 23, 1964, Ken Johnson of the Houston Colt . 45s became the first pitcher to throw a nine-inning no-hitter and lose. In fact, he is still the only individual to throw an official (nine-inning) no-hitter and lose.
Since there are no hits in a perfect game, all perfect games are no-hitters. And it's impossible to score without getting on base, of course, so a perfect game is also a de facto shutout.
The record books of Major League Baseball are filled with incredible records that are all but untouchable. One of those feats came in 1941, when Joe DiMaggio put together a 56-game hitting streak.
1) Carl Hubbell -- 24 straight wins
500, but 15 more consecutive wins (including 13 more complete games) by Hubbell boosted New York to the National League pennant and earned Hubbell his second NL MVP award.
A no-hitter in baseball is a game in which no player on an opposing team gets on base as a result of hitting a pitch. No-hitters are rare. Only 316 have happened in Major League Baseball from 1876 to date.
The pitcher who holds the record for the most no-hitters is Nolan Ryan, who threw seven in his 27-year career.
Haddix's 122⁄3-inning, one-hit complete game, against the team that had just represented the NL in the previous two World Series, is considered by many to be the best pitching performance in MLB history.
The following year on June 11, 1938, Vander Meer pitched a no-hitter against the Boston Bees. Four days later against the Brooklyn Dodgers in what was the first night game ever held at Ebbets Field, he threw another no-hitter, becoming the only player in major league history to throw two straight no-hitters.
Waite Hoyt, New York Yankees (0.00 ERA in 1921) We've listed the five pitchers who have had scoreless postseasons by the most innings. Hoyt and Mathewson both pitched 27.0 innings during the 1921 and 1905 World Series, respectively.
Finch was the baseball player featured in the April 1, 1985, issue of Sports Illustrated; the story, titled "The Curious Case of Sidd Finch" by George Plimpton, was a 14-page profile of a New York Mets pitching phenom who had never played the game but whose fastball was a leather-wrapped sonic boom of 168 miles per ...
Cy Young is the all-time leader in innings pitched with 7,356, and the only pitcher to throw more than 7,000 innings. Pud Gavin is the only other pitcher in MLB history to throw more than 6,000 innings.
Scherzer has been dominant for many years, but in this game against the Pirates, he was unhittable. With two outs in the ninth inning, he hit pinch-hitter Jose Tabata on the left arm to lose the perfect game.
The 1968 Chicago Cubs and 1906 Philadelphia Athletics share the record at 48 innings.
The MLB record for consecutive three-hit games is six, set by the Royals' George Brett (May 8-13, 1976) and the Brooklyn Robins' Jimmy Johnston (June 25-30, 1923).
Edwin Encarnación, Alex Rodriguez, Jeff King, Andre Dawson and Willie McCovey form the multiple two-homer innings club. * Morales, Baerga and Bellhorn are the only players in history to homer from both sides of the plate in one inning.
Darren Lewis, the National League record holder for career games without an error, had an additional twenty-three errorless games in the American League during the streak for a Major League career mark of three-hundred ninety-two, since broken by Nick Markakis (see above).
On May 13, 1952 while pitching for the Class-D Bristol Twins, Ron Necciai tossed a no-hitter, striking out 27 in nine innings!
No major league player has ever thrown two perfect games, although Jean Faut of the AAGPBL accomplished the feat with perfect games in 1951 and 1953.
Necciai is the only professional pitcher to record 27 strikeouts in a nine-inning game, and a ball from that 7-0 win over the Welch Miners – which Necciai donated to the Hall of Fame in 2001 – is on display in the Museum's One for the Books exhibit.