No Hitters Are… Forever? or MUCH Ado About Essentially Nothing

The D.C. Balk’s Joe Musgrove pitched a no-hitter Friday evening, setting me to wondering if we’d had a no-hitter in the EFL before.   

CONSUMER PROTECTION WARNING:   This is a very LONG post.  You have permission to scroll down to the standings, where things go quicker, if you want.  I won’t be offended. 

I started by asking a younger, hopefully less addled brain, belonging to Ryan.  His response:

“Hmm…Feel like there have been some, but no specific ones come to mind.”

So I set out to discover whether there had ever been an EFL no-hitter, digging through my cluttered email. As I uncovered hints of possible EFL no-hit gems, I wrote to various other members of the league to seek confirmation.  

Mark Weinert: “I’m afraid I just don’t remember”

John Johnson (about Josh Beckett):  “I don’t really remember this.”

Mark Johnson: “I don’t remember…”

Five EFL owners consulted, counting myself, and no one could definitely confirm whether there had been an EFL no-hitter before Musgrove – although John said he was “pretty sure” Ubaldo Jimenez had accomplished the feat for the Dragons. This is not a comforting result for those worried about dementia, or whatever that malady is called.

So I continued my search, going all the way back to 2007 in my e-mail outbox (where almost all of the EFL updates written between 2007 and 2014 are stored.)

Here is what I found: 

EFL No-Hitter #1:  June 12, 2007, Justin Verlander, Pittsburgh Alleghenys. In the 2006 EFL rookie draft, there were clearly three premier pitchers:  Justin Verlander, Felix Hernandez, and Francisco Liriano.  It was like this year’s Let’s Make A Deal for free agent shortstops, only then it was for rookie pitchers.

I had Verlander and Hernandez nearly tied and Liriano a half-step behind.  I grabbed King Felix, Verlander went to Pittsburgh, and Liriano went to Kaline. 

All three of those stud pitchers have thrown no hitters.  Verlander was first.

# 2: April 17, 2010:  Ubaldo Jimenez, Haviland Dragons.  Apparently, I asked John about his reaction at church.  The update records our conversation, in which John’s main reaction was concern that Jimenez’ 128 pitches might undermine his effectiveness the next time he took the mound.

# 3: June 25, 2010:  Edwin Jackson, Old Detroit Wolverines. MLB had no-nos from Dallas Braden and Roy Halladay in early 2010, before Jackson’s.  I don’t think either of them were on EFL rosters at the time. But I am not sure because in my post after Jackson’s no-no I express my relief at not being the last EFL team to have a no-hitter in 2010.

#4: July 26, 2010:  Matt Garza, Haviland Dragons.  I only found indirect reference to this gem  in our updates. I’m pretty sure (but not certain) Garza was on the Dragon roster. 

#5: May 3, 2011:  Francisco Liriano, Kaline Drive. I traded for Liriano later in the 2011 season, Tom giving up the last couple of months of the star to try to get some promising younger players.

NOTE: Felix didn’t throw his no-hitter until 2012, when he was no longer a Wolverine and was too pricey for the league.

#6: May 7, 2011:  Justin Verlander, Haviland Dragons (?). I can’t find a post mentioning this one. I am practically certain the Dragons still had Verlander – why would they have traded him away? –  but I don’t have a written record of it.  And anyway, it’s way more fun if John couldn’t remember TWO no-hitters by Verlander, but could remember one by Ubaldo. Clearly it was our after-church conversation that sealed the deal.  Lesson: it’s good to be the target of a some EFL update ribbing.

# 7: September 28, 2012:  Homer Bailey, McPherson Elephantes.  Bailey was drafted as a rookie by the Wolverines in 2008, but I apparently traded him to McPherson, or lost him in the Elephantes’ expansion draft maybe?  The Elephantes were Mark Johnson’s first team.  Not too long after this they were the first (and so far only) team to use the league’s restart rule.

#8:  July 2, 2013:  Homer Bailey, Pittsburgh Alleghenys.  Somehow Bailey migrated to Pittsburgh over the offseason. These no-hitters in rapid succession convinced me Bailey had become the awesome ace I hoped I was drafting in 2008. So I made him my main target in one of my disastrous trades with the Alleghenys.  This trade sent Shelby Miller and Jose Altuve to the A’s in exchange for Bailey and someone else… can’t remember who.  Bailey stank for me in his second Wolverine tenure, injured most of the time, just like in his first tour with Old Detroit.

#9:  May 25, 2014:  Josh Beckett, Haviland Dragons.  No one seems to remember anything about this one.  My comments in the subsequent update gave no details.

NOTE: 2014 was the last season in which I emailed my updates, working from spreadsheets.  In 2015, when we switched to the database, the updates switched to the webpage.

#10:  June 9, 2015: Chris Heston, Portland Rosebuds.  The Elephantes having perished and been dismembered, the Rosebuds sprouted in Portland and quickly produced a no-hitter by probably the least accomplished pitcher on this list.

#11:  June 20, 2015: Max Scherzer,  Peshastin Pears.  I wrote a snarky post about Jose Tabata, who pulled a Conforto to get hit by a pitch with 2 out in the bottom of the ninth to ruin Max’s perfect game. Then I went to church where Rochelle Staley preached on compassion for sinners.  Darn church. So then I wrote another post apologizing for being mean to Tabata.  

#12:  July 25, 2015: Cole Hamels, Pittsburgh Alleghenys.   2015 saw so MANY no-hitters, no wonder no one could remember them. They weren’t a big deal.  The Alleghenys had a shutout the day before the no-hitter, so it didn’t stand out. After Hamels’ gem, the Alleghenys only had to wait 18 days for…

#13:  August 12, 2015:  Hishashi Iwakuma,  Pittsburgh Allegheny.  This one got no coverage from the EFL Commissioner.  We were having technical glitches and I went a couple of days without updating. The fourth no-hitter of the season, all by EFL pitchers,  drew no notice.  (The fifth, by Mike Fiers on August 21, got no coverage, either, but I think he may not have been on an EFL team at that time.  Supporting this belief is this fact: Oregon was having wildfires, and a Mike Fiers pun would have been irresistible.) 

NOTE:  Jake Arrieta pitched a no-hitter on Aug 30, but my next update wasn’t until Sept 3.  I don’t know if Arrieta was an EFL player.  Arrieta gets ignored again  for his April 2016 no-hitter, so I suspect he was not one of us at the time.

#14: October 2, 2015:  Max Scherzer, Peshastin Pears.  It was so bad in 2015 that any pitcher worth his salt pitched two no hitters that season.  Here’s how I described it:  a “nice no-hitter with 17 strikeouts and no walks.”  You know, “nice” by comparison with the somewhat shabby no hitters other people had been pitching.

#15:  April 21, 2018:  Sean Manaea, Cottage Cheese.  No mention was made of this in the next day’s update.  I don’t know why.  But there was an oblique reference in the next no-hitter update, on…

#16:  May 8, 2018: James Paxton, Kaline Drive.  If you read what I wrote the next day, you learned that Paxton’s no-hitter was the first thrown by a Canadian in Canada, and 2018 was the first season in which a no-hitter was thrown in three countries. (Walker Buehler had thrown the first 6 innings of a no-hitter in Mexico City on Opening Day.) It was also the first season in which a player had thrown a no-hitter and allowed an eagle to perch on him, according to our website.

#17:  May 7, 2019:  Mike Fiers, Bellingham Cascades.  The league boredom with no-hitters, caused by the glut in 2015, had worn off my May of 2019. Fiers’ gem was the theme of the entire update the next day.

#18: April 9, 2021:  Joe Musgrove, DC Balk.   It wasn’t a perfect game because Joey Gallo got hit by a pitch.  This happened well before the 9^th inning, so it wasn’t a Cheesy conspiracy Conforto-Tabata style incident, as far as I know.

It was the Padres’ first no-hitter ever.  I wonder if any major league franchises are still without no-hitters? (The answer is “yes”;  see below.)

 

NOTES: 

• I got a lot of help from Ryan and both Marks, who also couldn’t resist digging around in our emails and the website archive of update posts.
• My research took way longer than I thought it would, because I spent more than half the time reading the irrelevant parts of long-forgotten posts. I was up until almost 3:00 AM. 
• Since Verlander’s first no hitter, apparently the first in the EFL, there have been 43 one-pitcher no hitters in MLB. We have 18 of them at least.  It’s very possible I’ve missed some before 2015.
• Between Fiers and Musgrove, there were three MLB no-hitters, but none of the pitchers (Verlander, Giolito, Mills) seem to have been on EFL rosters at the time.
• Back to the question of whether there are any major league teams which have never tossed no-hitters.  Wikipedia will tell you the answer is “no.”  I quote:

  “All 30 active teams in Major League Baseball have had a no-hitter. The last active MLB team to throw a no-hitter was the San Diego Padres. They entered MLB in 1969 and had their first no-hitter on April 9, 2021, when Joe Musgrove struck out ten batters and held the Texas Rangers hitless at Globe Life Field.^[27] “

  That’s impressive.  I wonder how they got this out there so fast?  Didn’t they get distracted reading old updates?  But speed isn’t everything.  Accuracy also matters.  Like in most mainstream media, the EFL gets overlooked.  So I did a little study: 

• Pittsburgh      4
• Haviland        4
• Peshastin:       2
• Kaline:             2
• McPherson:    1
• Portland:         1
• Old Detroit:    1
• Cottage:           1
• Bellingham:   1
• DC:                   1
• Canberra:       0
• Flint Hill:        0
• Teams no longer in the league (Victoria, Wasatch, Newberg, Nebraska, Brookland):   0 

 

OK…. On to the standings, finally.

Haviland: W, 3 – 2. (27 PA, .250, .333, .292;  no pitching. None needed.). The Dragons are getting on my nerves.  There aren’t really any highlights (Realmuto’s 2 singles? ) but the D’s won’t budge.  The W’s keep having good days and still can’t squeeze into first.  Come ON, John. The Oldies can’t keep this up.  Can’t you let me be in first ONE day so I can take a picture, forget about it, and remember it 14 years from now when I’m researching something else? 

Old Detroit: DNP, 5 – 2. (23 PA, .227, .261, .227;  7 ip, 0 er, 0.000 ERA)  Walker Buehler twirled 6 scoreless and David Phelps added another. To no avail. 

Flint Hill: DNP, 2 – 0. (26 PA, .250, .308, .292; 6 ip, 1 er, 1.50 ERA).  The Tornadoes had a similar day to the Wolverines — great pitching and weak hitting, and no progress in the standings.  Sean Manaea — he of no-hit fame, if we could remember no-hitters — was the sole author of the Flinty pitching story. 

DC: W, 2 – 0.  (25 PA, .100, .280, .100; 9 ip, 0 er, 0 hits, 0.00 ERA).  If it weren’t for Myles Straw’s two singles, the Balk would have been no-hit while no-hitting, which has never happened in a completed game.  That would have been a double first! And would never be forgotten, I am sure!  But it didn’t. And the Balk were rewarded with a 0.2 game boost in the standings. 

Pittsburgh: W (-1), L 1; (-7) – 0. (24 PA, .100, .167, .100; 3.7 ip, 2 er, 4.86 ERA). If it weren’t for Jose Altuve’s two hits, the Alleghenys would have been no-hit while the Balk were no-hitting!  Sounds exotic, but I fooled you! Every time a team no-hits, another team gets no-hit.  (Ed. Note: I am flagging this one for double-checking when Dave or I get time.  I don’t know why the A’s should lose 7 runs scored when they have only been saddled with 2 replacement plate appearances.) 

Canberra: W, 5 – 2. (20 PA, .188, .350, .250;  9 ip, 3 er, 3.00 ERA).  Has anyone noticed the Kangaroos creeping up the standings.  Here they are, their winning percentage over .600. Rich Hill have them a nice 6 ip, 2 er start, and Mike Trout went 2 for 4 with a double and a walk.  He’s still not sick (1.425 OPS) but I still think he should be put in isolation before he infects someone or whatever. 

Portland: L, 2 – 6.  (12 PA, .000, .083, .000;  2.3 ip, 1 er,  3.91 ERA). Aha!  A team that actually GOT no-hit while another team was no-hitting!  Yes, but the Rosebuds only batted for four innings. So it doesn’t quite count. Although hot hitters like Corey Seager and Nick Senzel got cooled off, which is a relief to the rest of the league. And the Portlies dropped a notch — almost two! — in the standings.

Bellingham: W 1, L (-1); 6 – (-1). (18 PA, .412, .444, .941;  11 ip, 3 er, 2.45 ERA) The best day in the EFL, even better than DC’s.  Lots of great pitching.  The hitting was slim, but very loud!  Ronald Acuna Jr. made the most noise with two doubles a homer and a single in 4 trips to the plate — one base short of a cycle.  The Cascades are still in 8th place, but they gained a half game on the Dragons and 1.3 games on the Rosebuds. 

Kaline: L, 7 – 8. (21 PA, .353, .476, .706.  no pitching).  Jesse Winker was nowhere near DC, obviously. He went 3 for 3 with a double to lead a potent attack. Alas — all that great hitting can’t stave off a loss when there’s no pitching.

Peshastin: L, 4 – 8. (17 PA, .375, .412, .438; no pitching) The same as Kaline, only with fewer plate appearance and less power. All four Pears got hits. Only two of them erased their hits getting caught stealing. 

Cottage: “L”, 3 – 1.  (34 PA, .219, .265, .375;  6 ip, 0 er, 0.00 ERA).  I spent a lot of energy this offseason trying to fill the yawning gap in the Cheese pitching supply. But they are still 3 active pitchers and 10 innings short.  One of the three pitchers I traded to Cottage (leaving my team one active pitcher short for April, barring a minor miracle) was twice ex-Wolverine Andrew Heaney, the author of this sterling-but-overshadowed pitching line.