Year of the Pitcher

By Ruben Johnson

       Much can be made of Matt Garza’s no-hitter.  To some it represents the emergence of one of the game’s most gifted young pitchers; to others it represents another nail in the coffin of the offensively-charged 90’s and 2000’s.  Surely both interpretations are reasonable; I even predicted Garza to win the AL Cy Young this year.  However, it is the second interpretation that I think is the most important at this time.  Being a young fan of the game, I can’t remember the last time no-hitters of the complete, perfect, nearly-missed, and Jim-Joyced varieties abounded in one season, let alone 5/8 of a season, as they have in 2010.  The answer is in 1990 and 1991, when the MLB hosted back-to-back seven no-hitter seasons.  Only 100 games into this season, the official no-hitter count already stands at five, including two perfect games.  Are these numbers historically mind-boggling?  Not really, however we all feel boggled of the mind.  Why is that?
       Simply put, lesser pitchers are pitching worse no-hitters more often.  Don’t get me wrong, any no-hitter is an impressive feat, but upon further review of these bonafide “gems,” some shine a little less brightly.  First off is the issue of walks.  Ubaldo Jimenez walked 6 in his no-hitter, and Edwin Jackson walked 8 freaking guys!  I thought that command was usually a valuable asset to pitchers, but apparently against the Braves and Rays (two of the best teams in the Majors) you can do just fine without it.  Then there are the two newbies.  Now, I don’t want to take anything away from Dallas Braden, and especially not Armando Galarraga, who has had enough taken away from him, but they don’t exactly exemplify perfection.  Yet Braden managed to achieve perfection against the hot hitting Rays, even though opponents were batting .340 against his fastball and .364 against his curve going into the game; Galarraga did what he did even though 25 out of the 28 batters he faced put the ball in play.  Now what’s the lesson to be learned? Other than the fact that none of these guys are Roy Halladay, who walked none and struck out twelve in his perfecto, a valuable lesson is that the MLB’s offensive prowess has evaporated over the past few years – similar to the way the steroids evaporated out of Jason Giambi’s greasy mustache. 

       The frequency of these no-hitters is only the tip of the iceberg: these no-hit performances range from cheap, to anomalous, to downright dominant, and anyone who has looked at the ERA leaderboards this year have probably noticed the same trends.  The reason you feel unease over these ridiculously low ERA’s and dollar store no-hitters is that we’ve become accustomed to baseball being a game of production rather than prevention.  I fully expect to never witness another pitcher pass the 300-win milestone while hitting 500 homeruns has become a feat that won’t guarantee your place in the H.O.F. anymore.  This is the image of the future we were fed, when all of the sudden Ubaldo Jiminez seemed on his way to 300 wins by end of the year.  Can this bizarro-MLB be attributed to the end of the Steroid Era?  It’s possible.  Maybe next year all these superfluous young aces will go Mark Prior on us and we’ll have to endure Adam Lind and Jason Bay winning the MVPs.  The only thing I can say with any certainty is that Matt Garza pitched a great game, and a great game will always be worth something.

Here is all the news you need to read on Matt Garza and the Year of the Pitcher:

Garza’s no-no

First ever no-hitter for the Rays

Garza channels his emotions

View from a bitter Tigers fan on Graza’s no-hitter

5th no-hitter this season