Stats

Since 1901 the 30 modern franchises have logged 2,736 team-seasons; Houston owns 65 of them. With 280 franchise-mapped no-hitters in that span, a team in Houston's shoes expects 280 × 65 ⁄ 2736 ≈ 6.65. They threw 18. The Poisson tail P(X ≥ 18 | λ = 6.65) ≈ 2.0×10⁻⁴, under the Bonferroni bar of 0.05 ⁄ 60 ≈ 8.3×10⁻⁴ for 60 franchise-level tests.

Across 126 modern seasons, 285 no-hitters make a mean of 2.26 per year. A Poisson process would put the season-to-season variance near that mean; the observed variance is 3.51, a dispersion index of 1.55. The test statistic (index × 125 degrees of freedom) comes to 193.8, p ≈ 8×10⁻⁵ against a constant rate.

At the long-run rate of λ = 2.26 per season, P(X ≥ 9) ≈ 5.7×10⁻⁴: about one season in 1,750. Across all 126 modern seasons, the expected count of nine-no-hitter years is 0.07. We got one.

Before 1990: 4 combined among 220 no-hitters (1.8%). Since: 18 of 110 (16.4%). A two-proportion z-test against the pooled rate (22 ⁄ 330) gives z = 5.0, p ≈ 3×10⁻⁷.

From 56,197 pitching starts, 2015 through the 2026 World Series, the chance a hitless bid survives each inning, given that it got there: 42%, 45%, 47%, 43%, 47%, 45%, 42%, 47%, 48% for innings 1 through 9. The full product is 0.0008, about 1 start in 1,300. The curve above shows the share of all starts still hitless after each inning.

Of the 330, 46 were won 1–0 (13.9%, about one in seven). Across all MLB games, a 1–0 final turns up roughly once in 40.

Over roughly 460,000 team-games (230,000 games, two pitching sides each), 330 no-hitters work out to one per ~1,394 starts. A 773-start career at that rate expects λ = 0.55. P(X ≥ 7 | λ = 0.55) ≈ 2×10⁻⁶, about 1 in 500,000. Koufax's 314 starts expect λ = 0.23; P(X ≥ 4 | λ = 0.23) ≈ 9×10⁻⁵, about 1 in 11,000.

Same exposure model as the Astros entry: 280 franchise-mapped victims over 2,736 team-seasons puts the Phillies' 126 seasons at 12.9 expected. They have suffered 19. P(X ≥ 19 | λ = 12.9) ≈ 0.066, a result that chance alone produces about 7% of the time.

Run 4,000 random scatters of 330 no-hitters across a season's calendar (weighted by each month's real share): about nine in ten of the simulated histories produce at least one date holding six or more. Real history's busiest dates hold exactly six. The only two double-no-hitter days ever (April 22, 1898 and June 29, 1990) also sit on expectation; the per-season pairing math predicts about two.

Observed vs. expected by month across all 330 no-hitters, using each month's approximate share of games played, with the ten October and November no-hitters counted in September: April 0.95×, May 1.06×, June 1.02×, July 0.86×, August 0.82×, September 1.27×. The whole pattern tests at p ≈ 0.16 (chi-square, 5 degrees of freedom): consistent with noise. The exposure shares are estimates, but the conclusion survives any reasonable version of them.

Model: first-hit depth ∼ park + pitching-team-season + batting-team-season + home⁄away, ordinary least squares over every pitching side since 2015. Each team’s road games pin down its own quality; whatever remains at its home park is the venue. The park block is highly significant (F = 4.59 on 31 degrees of freedom, p ≈ 4×10⁻¹⁶): venue adds real information after both teams are controlled. It is a thin slice of a noisy outcome, though; no single block explains even 1% of game-to-game variation (park ≈ 0.3%, each team-season block ≈ 0.9%). Venue-only effects span −0.22 to +0.23 hitless innings and correlate 0.84 with the raw park table. They are persistent: even- and odd-season estimates correlate 0.72. The signal weakens with depth; past the sixth inning, 462 events since 2015 are too few for park-specific claims.

Across 56,204 pitching sides since 2015, home staffs average 0.816 completed hitless innings to start a game, visitors 0.733: an edge of +0.084, p ≈ 2×10⁻¹⁶ clustered by game. In first-hit terms: inning 1.82 versus 1.73. Fitting a separate home edge per park on top of team-season controls improves nothing (F = 0.61, p = 0.96). That is an absence of evidence for park-specific familiarity, not proof that every park’s edge is identical or even positive; a handful of raw park splits currently lean the visitors’ way.

First-pitch temperature from MLB’s schedule feed, 46,944 outdoor pitching sides since 2015. Mean hitless depth by temperature band, a steady downward gradient: below 55°F 0.82, 55–64 0.81, 65–74 0.79, 75–84 0.75, 85+ 0.70. In first-hit terms: inning 1.82 in the coldest band, 1.70 in the hottest. Adjusted for park, team-seasons, and day⁄night, the association is −0.030 innings per +10°F (F = 30.8, p ≈ 3×10⁻⁸), and adding month-of-season controls strengthens it to −0.043 (p ≈ 7×10⁻¹⁰) rather than explaining it away. Observational, not causal. Domes and closed roofs are excluded; their “weather” is a thermostat.

Same fixed-effects framework as the ballpark entry, with MLB’s first-pitch weather joined to all 56,204 sides. Day⁄night: 0.010 innings apart raw, +0.007 with season controls, p = 0.50 (the full fixed-effects version agrees: +0.006, p = 0.57). Wrigley’s own split: 0.808 hitless innings by day, 0.797 by night. Wind, outdoor games only: in⁄out speed slopes per +10 mph are −0.001 and −0.010 (joint p = 0.75), direction classes alone p = 0.995, direction plus direction-specific speed p = 0.22; nothing tested clears significance. Roof closed, tested within the seven parks that actually open and close one, with month-of-season controls: +0.042 innings, p = 0.16. The roof decision follows the weather, so the archive cannot separate the two.

The full fixed-effects model reaches R² = 0.023 over 56,204 deduplicated pitching sides: about 2.3% of the variance in how long a game’s opening no-hit bid survives, from more than 700 parameters. The effects this section does find are real in aggregate, and nearly useless for calling tonight’s game. That is why we watch.

The 40 games produced 104 line outs, 15% of their balls in play. At a league line-drive batting average near .650, P(all 104 caught) = 0.35¹⁰⁴ ≈ 10⁻⁴⁷. The .650 is a league-wide figure; the 104 line outs are counted directly from the pitch logs of the 40 no-hitters. Selection does the heavy lifting: a game only makes this list if every liner finds a glove.

The 40 no-hitters logged 372 strikeouts in 1,162 plate appearances (32.0%) and 89 walks (7.7%). League rates run near 22% and 8.5%, respectively. Called strikes plus swinging strikes came to 32.5% of all 4,707 pitches, against a league norm near 29%.

Median xBA .622; 63% graded .500 or better; 7.7% under .200. By exit velocity, 20.1% left the bat under 85 mph. Batted-ball type is recorded for 419 hits, one more than carry an xBA grade: 48% line drives, 32% ground balls, 20% fly balls, and zero popups.

None of the game's 146 pitches carries a type code in MLB's feed; Estadio de Béisbol Monterrey had no tracking system installed. The chart's Other bucket holds 398 pitches: 114 sweepers, 78 knuckle curves, 59 splitters, and 147 untyped, 146 of those from Monterrey.

Luplow's outs came against Rodón (April 14, 2021) and Miley (May 7, 2021). Realmuto's came in the five-pitcher Mets no-hitter (April 29, 2022) and the Astros' Game 4 World Series no-hitter (November 2, 2022). Suárez's came against Arrieta (April 21, 2016) and Fiers (May 7, 2019). Guerrero Jr.'s came against Manning and two relievers (July 8, 2023) and Blanco (April 1, 2024). It's less cosmic than it looks: a team that gets no-hit twice sends mostly the same hitters to the plate both times, and somebody has to bat last.

From the pitch logs of every official game since 2015, three first hits that arrived with six hitless innings complete were bunts: Lindor off Ryan Madson on September 27, 2015; DeShields off Sam Howard on September 25, 2020; Friedl off Tim Herrin on September 25, 2024. Cleveland was the bunting club twice and the victim once, and two of the three fell on the same September date, four years apart. A bunt that failed is an out in the record, so this counts the bunts that worked.

Among the 418 Statcast-graded spoiler hits, the maximum exit velocity is 115.7 mph (April 12, 2018) and the minimum is 23.0 mph (September 25, 2024, seventh inning); the median is 98.5 mph. The minus-63-degree hit came off Tyler Anderson on June 15, 2022, at just 48.7 mph: Jared Walsh chopped it nearly straight down and beat it out for a single that never left the infield.

Of 2,351 dates with games since 2015, 423 saw at least one bid finish the 6th hitless (18.0%), 186 the 7th (7.9%), and 91 the 8th (3.9%). These are the same per-day maxima that color the season calendar.

Combined no-hitters excluded; this counts the 308 thrown start to finish by one pitcher. For scale: no-hitters happen about once every 1,400 starts, so even a pitcher who goes on to make 150 more starts, several full seasons' worth, has roughly a 1-in-10 shot at throwing one. Among pitchers who already had one, one in seven did it again.

At the modern franchises' rate of 280 no-hitters over 2,736 team-seasons (0.102 per team-season, the same exposure model as the Astros entry), one particular team going 45 seasons dry is P = e^−4.6 ≈ 0.010. But 30 franchises roll those dice at once: the longest drought among 30 should run about ln(30) ⁄ 0.102 ≈ 33 seasons, and the chance that at least one reaches 45 is about 26%. Runners-up: Toronto (Dave Stieb, 1990), Kansas City (Bret Saberhagen, 1991), Atlanta (Kent Mercker, 1994).

Solo no-hitters only, 29 of the 40 pitch logs in the Anatomy of a no-hitter data: mean 112, median 113; 25 exceeded 100 pitches, 16 exceeded 110 and four exceeded 120; maximum 134, minimum 93 (Valdez, August 1, 2023). Staff totals for all 40, combined no-hitters included: mean 118, median 114, maximum 159 (the five-pitcher Mets game, April 29, 2022).

The four: Edinson Vólquez (June 3, 2017), John Means (May 5, 2021), Domingo Germán (June 28, 2023, the perfect one), and Framber Valdez (August 1, 2023). Perfection isn't about facing 27 batters; it's about nobody reaching base at all. Means lost his to the dropped third strike, Vólquez and Valdez to walks. Every one of those runners was wiped out on the bases, which is the only way 27 batters can produce 27 outs.

The 2000 through 2024 seasons averaged λ = 3.12 no-hitters per year. P(zero) = e^−3.12 ≈ 4.4%, about 1 in 23.