No No-No

With Matt Garza giving Rays fans a no-hitter last night, it’s high time I re-ran this list – the Mets, now in their 49th season in the National League, have still never had a no-hitter, but they’ve had plenty of pitchers who did:
Pitchers Who Threw No-Hitters After Leaving The Mets:
Nolan Ryan (seven times, including for every other franchise he pitched for)
Tom Seaver
Mike Scott
Dwight Gooden
David Cone
Hideo Nomo
*Octavio Dotel (1 inning in combined no-hitter)
Pitchers Who Threw No-Hitters Before Coming To The Mets:
Warren Spahn (twice, albeit long before he was a Met)
Don Cardwell
Dock Ellis
John Candelaria
Bret Saberhagen
Kenny Rogers
Al Leiter
Hideo Nomo (got ’em on both ends)
Scott Erickson
**Pedro Martinez (9 perfect innings, but allowed hit in tenth; no longer officially counted as a no-hitter)
*Alejandro Pena (1 inning in combined no-hitter)
*Billy Wagner (1 inning in combined no-hitter – same one as Dotel)
If you count Pedro and leave out the relievers, that’s 15 pitchers, 23 no-hitters, and one heck of a trivia question.

15 thoughts on “No No-No”

  1. Went through the all-time list of no-hitters one at a time. There’s no shortcut I know of, you just gotta know who’s pitched for your team.

  2. I would have thought the Mets would have at least one. The fact that your team started in 1962 doesn’t help. Apart from the very recent expansion teams, I wonder how many others are in the same boat.
    BTW, I had the amazing good luck of being at Yankee Stadium for David Cone’s perfect game.

  3. Well, you learn something new every day. For instance, I had no idea that Warren Spahn pitched for the Mets, or, for that matter, any team other than the Braves.

  4. A lot of washed up stars played for the Mets in the 1960’s, including I think Duke Snyder and Yogi Berra. Yogi only had 7 at bats before quitting for good in 1965.

  5. https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=sta&lg=all&qual=y&type=4&season=2010
    Look at how many guys at the top of this list (hardest-throwing pitchers in 2010 by avg fastball speed) have thrown no-hitters. Jiminez, Verlander, Jackson, Buchholz, Garza, Lester, Burnett, Halladay …
    A few weeks ago I caught part of a broadcast with Rick Sutcliffe doing commentary, and he said that he thought there were more no-hitters as of late because there are more guys than ever who throw 95+ now. At first I wanted to dismiss this idea because Buehrle (perfect game), Braden (perfect game), Galarraga (perfect ** game), etc. don’t throw especially hard. But if you look at this leaderboard, there’s definitely something to the Red Baron’s theory.

  6. There is also some former Mets minor league players like Jim Bibby and AJ Burnett who threw no no’s

  7. It would seem that there are more pitchers than ever before with not only the high octane fastball but a reliable second (or in some cases third and fourth) pitch that can either be thrown for strikes or looks so much like the fastball out of the hand that even though it rarely is a strike there are lots of swings and misses/swings with poor results. Doesn’t hurt that way less hitters are on ‘roids these days. Last time there were this many no-nos? 1991. The year before Canseco went to the Rangers and ‘roids went mainstream.

  8. Here is another asterisk one: When I lived in Virginia Beach I remember watching Steve Traschel toss a no-hitter for Norfolk when the Mets sent him down for being ineffective. It was only a seven inning no-no since it was a minor league double header. They only play 7 inning double headers in the minors.

  9. @ Acuvue — of course not, as I mentioned in my previous post (Braden, Buehrle and Galarraga don’t fit the pattern at all.) I just think it’s interesting that if you just look at the top of the fastball velocity list, the list is now dominated by pitchers who have thrown no-hitters. A guy like Verlander isn’t nasty just because he can throw the fastball 98-101 regularly; he’s also nasty because he can almost hit 90 with a slider.

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