Tuesday, August 16, 2016

It Has Been Four Years Since The Last Perfect Game Was Thrown


In the roughly 150 years of baseball history just 23 perfect games have ever been thrown at the major league level. Last night, August 15th, marked the four year anniversary of Felix Hernandez's, which was the last we have seen. Over the four year span from 2009-12 there were an astonishing six perfect games. The decline in hitting led many to believe this was going to be commonplace in the game moving forward. Yet there has not been one since.

The above chart shows every pitcher that has thrown a perfect game as well as how many days between each one. In the three year stretch from 2010-2012 there was a perfect game thrown every 224 days. It has now been over 1,400 days since King Felix's, which means that stretch was likely just an insane statistical anomaly. If we matched the time between Randy Johnson's and Mark Buehrle's PGs we will not see another until 2018.

Some other facts:

--The Rays have been the victims during three of the past seven perfect games.

--Don Larsen threw his in the World Series and it was the first in 34 years.

--Since the last perfect game there has been 17 no-hitters, which includes five pitchers involved in multiple no-hitters.


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