Many of baseball's experts and analysts have said that baseball is currently in an era of the pitcher. I, quite frankly, agree. The last couple of years have shown us some great pitching performances and despite the desire to see the long ball or high scoring offense, I can't get enough of a pitcher who goes out there and just shuts down 9 guys for 9 innings. It's just so satisfying to have that feeling when a guy strikes out and is walking back to the dugout and you know he didn't have a chance from when he stepped into the batter's box. I'm sure it's been contagious because pitchers keep giving us what we want and more of it. Before the last five years, a perfect game has only come along once every couple of years or so. In 105 years of modern day baseball, there were only 15 perfect games. Since 2009, there have been six.
Well, seven if you ask me. Galarraga got screwed and it should have counted.
Anyways, as rare as perfect games are, no-hitters are not as rare but still a challenging feat none-the-less. Last year, there were seven and three of them were before June 2nd. So far, there have been eight games where no-hit bids were taken deep into the game, only to fall short. Quite remarkable.
I don't know if these games are an anomaly, a trend in better defense, a trend in poorer offense, or whatever the case. All I know is I'm loving the thrill. A 162 game season is quite hard to keep full focus on and yes, I still want perfect games to be rare and special. On the other hand, I've been to a few almost no hit games and the suspense is fantastic. Sure, most don't pan out, but I still love getting that feeling of a pitcher climbing to the top of the pitching excellence mountain and whether or not he gets there is not the point. It's the fact he's going for it.
Hopefully, they'll crack the code soon.
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