Can combined no-hitters get their own uniform numbers?
Ever since I added a column of “Uniform number” to my master no-hitters spreadsheet a few years ago, I’ve enjoyed tracking no-hitters by number.
Most prolific? No. 34, with 11 no-hitters: Nolan Ryan (3), Dave Stewart, Fernando Valenzuela, Kevin Millwood, Roy Halladay (2), Felix Hernandez, Homer Bailey (2).
Lowest? No. 11, by the Boston Red Sox’s Hideo Nomo and the New York Yankees’ Doc Gooden.
Highest? No. 61, by the Red Sox’s Clay Buchholz and the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Josh Beckett.
Most difficult to duplicate? No. 42, by the Cleveland Indians’ Sonny Siebert. Why? Because it can only be matched each year on April 15, when the entire MLB wears the league-retired No. 42 in celebration of Jackie Robinson Day.
It’s all good fun, but there has always been a bit of frustration related to how combined no-hitters fit into the mix.
On Sunday, just moments after I tweeted out that no MLB pitcher had thrown a no-hitter wearing a number as high as 65, the Yankees pulled Domingo Germán, No. 65, and put Germán’s no-no in the hands of Dellin Betances, No. 68, immediately killing the uniform number angle. (The no-no died an inning later.)
And on Friday night, just moments after I sent out a tweet noting that Dodgers starter Walker Buehler was looking to join Paul Dean, Bob Lemon and Warren Spahn (2) in the No. 21 no-no club, manager Dave Roberts handed the ball to reliever Tony Cingrani, No. 54, as Los Angeles went on to throw a four-pitcher combined no-hitter against the San Diego Padres in Monterrey, Mexico.
To bring combined no-nos into the uniform number conversations, I decided to assign a uniform number to such efforts weighted to the number of innings pitched using the following formula:
(P1 UniNo. * P1 IP) + (P2 UniNo. * P2 IP) …
Game’s total innings
A table showing the results for each of MLB’s 12 combined no-hitters is below, but here are some highlights:
During the Pittsburgh Pirates’ combined 10-inning no-hitter of 1997, Francisco Cordova, No. 67, threw nine innings of no-hit ball and Ricardo Rincon, No. 73, threw one inning. The weighed average comes out to No. 67.6, the highest of any MLB no-hitter.
Friday night’s Dodgers’ no-hitter featuring Buehler, No. 21 (6 innings), Cingrani, No. 54 (1 inning), Yimi Garcia, No. 63 (1 inning) and Adam Liberatore, No. 36 (1 inning) calculates out to an even No. 31. So the Dodgers tandem (sort of) joins Bob Forsch (2), Jon Lester and Max Scherzer (2) in the No. 31 no-no club.
Two other combined no-hitters arrive at an integer. The Angels’ Mark Langston, No. 12 (7 innings) and Mike Witt, No. 39 (2 innings) gets assigned No. 18, putting the pair in a group with the Chicago White Sox’s Bill Dietrich, the St. Louis Cardinals’ Lon Warneke, the Yankees’ Don Larsen, the Kansas City Royals’ Bret Saberhagen, the San Francisco Giants’ Matt Cain and the Seattle Mariners’ Hisashi Iwakuma.
The Orioles tandem of Bob Milacki, No. 18 (6 innings), Mike Flanagan, No. 46 (1 inning), Mark Williamson, No. 32 (1 inning) and Gregg Olson, No. 30 (1 inning) gets No. 24, giving the White Sox’s Vern Kennedy and the St. Louis Browns’ “Bobo” Holloman some company.
We’ll have to wait and see if a future tandem can match another tandem’s weighted number. Up for grabs are: 13.9, 18.4, 27.7, 45.8, 67.6, 40.7, 32.2 and 42.7. Or even better, imagine a combined no-hitter thrown on Jackie Robinson Day, with a collection of six pitchers, all wearing No. 42, maintaining a zero in the H column.
NH
Team
Pitchers used
Year
Weighted Avg
1
BOS
Babe Ruth (0)
Ernie Shore (9)
1917
No numbers
2
BAL
Steve Barber, 13 (8⅔)
Stu Miller, 37 (⅓)
1967
13.9
3
OAK
Vida Blue, 14 (5)
Glenn Abbott, 37 (1)
Paul Lindblad, 25 (1)
Rollie Fingers, 34 (2)
1975
18.4
4
CHW
“Blue Moon” Odom, 13 (5)
Francisco Barrios, 46 (4)
1976
27.7
5
LAA
Mark Langston, 12 (7)
Mike Witt, 39 (2)
1990
18.0
6
BAL
Bob Milacki, 18 (6)
Mike Flanagan, 46 (1)
Mark Williamson, 32 (1)
Gregg Olson, 30 (1)
1991
24.0
7
ATL
Kent Mercker, 50 (6)
Mark Wohlers, 43 (2)
Alejandro Pena, 26 (1)
1991
45.8
8
PIT
Francisco Cordova, 67 (9)
Ricardo Rincon, 73 (1)
1997
67.6
9
HOU
Roy Oswalt, 44 (1)
Peter Munro, 53 (2⅔)
Kirk Saarloos, 23 (1⅓)
Brad Lidge, 54 (2)
Octavio Dotel, 29 (1)
Billy Wagner, 13 (1)
2003
40.7
10
SEA
Kevin Millwood, 25 (6)
Charlie Furbush, 41 (⅔)
Stephen Pryor, 46 (⅓)
Lucas Luetge, 44 (⅓)
Brandon League, 43 (⅔)
Tom Wilhelmsen, 54 (1)
2012
32.2
11
PHI
Cole Hamels, 35 (6)
Jake Diekman, 63 (1)
Ken Giles, 53 (1)
Jonathan Papelbon, 58 (1)
2014
42.7
12
LAD
Walker Buehler, 21 (6)
Tony Cingrini, 54 (1)
Yimi Garcia, 63 (1)
Adam Liberatore, 36 (1)
2018
31.0
