MLB No Hitters

I believe that there have been 4 in one month before. 
 

Anyone see the Pillar interview after being hit in the nose with a pitch? What a teammate, would love to have That Guy on my team

It would be tough for a league to self sabotage itself more than MLB over the past 5 years and there is no end in sight. Some absolutely brutal baseball on display.

Modern MLB game is skewed towards HRs. strikeouts and walks. Current hitting approaches forego contact for power, batting avg. for OPS. The defensive shift takes away a lot of singles into right field for left handed batters. All these factors contribute to increase the probability of a no-hitter. The only modern trend that decreases the probability of a no-hitter is limiting starting pitchers to lower pitch counts and innings than in past eras. It is rare that a manager removes a pitcher who is throwing a no hitter, but it happens. There have been a few combined no hitters, with the bullpen shutting it down too.

I find this argument strange. Ok sure there have been a few no no's already this season. But on any given gameday, I look at the scores and I see 8-2, 16-4, 10-5, etc.  I still see a lot of runs being scored, which would mean logically, still a lot of hits.

A no hitter will always be extremely rare, even if less extremely rare than it used to be. So, most games will still have some hits, and high scores due to power. To my surprise, overall hits per game has not changed significantly over the past 10 years, but with more batters walking and striking out than ever before, hence less balls being put in play, the chances of any given 9 innings without a hit has increased. Walks + Ks + defensive shift = less hits.

The situational hitting is terrible. Many little leaguers have better awareness. 

Not enough balls in play. Strikeout, walk or home run. Boring as hell.

A parade of relief goons who come in and sling it 97 miles an hour.

An entire generation of hitters who have been preached launch angles and can't make contact with the goons.

Pitch-count math that takes-out star starters too early. People want to see the best in the game do battle, not an endless line of Billy Bob smoke throwers.

Shifts where players are thrown-out from an infielder playing short outfield.

Pace of play.

Guaranteed contracts that cripple the sport. 

Astros cheating bastards with no punishment by one of the worst Commissioners in modern time.

etc......

I don't disagree, JP, that many of the things you mention make the game less enjoyable for many fans to watch. I don't necessarily like most of the new rules and new trends either, yet still enjoy watching baseball as much as ever. The game, like the world, evolves, so the best way to enjoy it is to maintain a 2021 baseball world view, not a 1970s or 1980s view, and ditch any idea that the game "should" be played the way it used to be.

The bottom line, not financially but in terms of being competitive enough to win baseball games, is to use whatever strategy available within the rules that is to your team's advantage. You can't blame team management or even MLB commissioners office for that. People have more data now than ever before and they have learned new things. It would be counter productive to not use these newfound strategies to their advantage, for some vaguely perceived greater good of the game.

For example, it is an advantage to spend more time on offense than on defense, and to make the opposing pitchers throw more pitches, therefore batters will take more pitches in order to gain this advantage. If slowing the game down is a by product of this strategy, so be it. The goal of players and management is to win games, not to keep the game moving so casual fans don't get bored. If using 6 pitchers a game wins more often than using just 1 or 2, same thing. Nobody is going to win 300 games in a career anymore, and the 20 win season for a pitcher is becoming a dinosaur too. That doesn't ruin the game, it just makes it different.

It used to be exciting to watch players like Pete Rose scrap out lots of hits, but with more access to data, MLB teams have realized that a .220 hitter with power is more valuable towards the goal of winning games than a high batting average singles hitter like Charlie Hustle the hit king (Rose is one of my favorite players of all time). I'd rather watch my team walk and strikeout most of the time, get 4 hits in a game, but 3 of them are home runs which drive in the runners who walked, and WIN, then get 10 hits, bunt and steal bases, but score less runs and lose because the other team walked and mashed. Win the game.

31 strikeouts in today's Rays/Phillies game. 31.

Brutal.

I agree with both PJ and Tofu, if that's possible.

Interesting SI piece came out today. Seems to have merit.

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This Should Be the Biggest Scandal in Sports

The inside story of how rampant pitch-doctoring in MLB is pumping pitchers up and deflating offenses.

https://www.si.com/mlb/2021/06/04/sticky-stuff-is-the-new-steroids-daily...

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http://www.si.com <<<

And then there's Brandon Crawford... last night was mighty fine! (I know the thread is about No-hitters, but, really... )