The Imperfect Game
Extra-inning rules challenge baseball’s sacred bids at immortality
Trivia question: Who is the only MLB pitcher not to allow a single baserunner in a nine-inning game and lose?
Surely, it would be impossible to lose a game without the opposing team reaching base. Trick question, right?
Not any longer, and the answer may not be far away.
On April 14, as you likely know already, Madison Bumgarner threw seven no-hit innings against the Braves in game two of a scheduled seven-inning doubleheader. Instantly, baseball fans had something new to debate. What had we just witnessed?
MLB quickly lauded the “first unofficial 7-inning no-no.” The Elias Sports Bureau, MLB’s official statistician, referred to it as a “notable achievement.” Notable achievement! So now what do we call it when La Russa stays awake at the intersection?
In the age of participation trophies, a Major League pitcher threw a no-hitter and got nothing. (Truly, one of life’s few occasions when you’ll get nothing and like it!)
Bumgarner’s masterpiece informs us that certain breeds of baseball immortality are all but off the table during doubleheaders.
Let’s consider this, though: What if a pitcher in a scheduled doubleheader retires the first 21 batters he faces? Seven perfect innings. And what if his team hasn’t scored? Extra innings. As per current MLB rules, a runner is placed on second base at the beginning of each extra inning. Hmm…
Suddenly, the pitcher who is perfect through seven is working from the stretch, presumably, for the first time all day. There’s a runner on base. Is it still a perfect game?
It can’t be; there’s a runner on base. But, you may ask yourself: Well, how did he get there?
I’m not sure how this would resolve itself, short of having Abbott and Costello as the official scorers.
So, now, what happens if he retires the side — three up, three down — for the next two innings? If his team is at home, he can complete nine perfect innings and his team can win in the bottom of the ninth. Twenty-seven up, twenty-seven down: a perfect game… with two runners left on base? (Don’t even ask about what happens if those runners get picked off or doubled up.)
And what happens if the runner placed on second base to start the inning scores, even with the pitcher maintaining perfection? At a time when many in and around the game bemoan the vanishing of productive outs, a groundball to the right side followed by a fly ball would score the runner easily. (This run would be unearned, a ruling that acquits the pitcher of the responsibility of the baserunner’s station.)
The pitcher then retires the 27th batter he faces, just like he has the 26 prior, and — depending on what his team did or does in its half of the ninth — wins, loses, or goes on to another inning.
For the sake of this exercise, let’s assume that the game ends. What the hell has just happened?
In 1964, Ken Johnson of the Houston Colt .45s threw a no-hitter and lost, 1-0. Oddities are a cherished piece of the game’s lore.
Baseball statistics — the kind you find on the back of baseball cards — are as much a part of the pastime as the on-field heroics and heroes themselves.
Whether I find the doubleheader and extra innings rules sacrilegious isn’t the point. It’s when a pitcher does everything he possibly can and reaches an unsurmountable obstacle — the Seventh Inning Ceiling — that I worry about the old ball game.
My buddy Will likes to say that baseball has been played for so long that everything’s been done at least once already. His point is to emphasize how difficult it is for a player or team to achieve something new.
Are we now waiting on the first imperfect game?
Elias, can I get a ruling?
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