Perfect!
We throw around the term “perfect” a lot. I know I do – a “perfect” dinner, a “perfect” day, and of course “perfect” timing. In baseball it means a perfect game. 9 innings, 27 batters faced, 27 outs, and no baserunners. This past Wednesday night Yankees pitcher Domingo German in an 11-0 win over the Oakland A’s hurled the first perfect game in MLB since Seattle ace Felix Hernandez in 2012. It’s quite a feat for German, especially since he had given up 15 runs in the last 5 and 1/3 innings that he pitched. Let’s take a look at MLB’s perfect games.
German’s perfect game is the 24th in the history of the game. Putting that in perspective, there have been over 235,000 MLB games played. Two pitchers accomplished the feat during one week in 1880, Lee Richmond (Worcester Worcesters) and John Montgomery Ward (Providence Grays). The rules were different then. Pitchers threw underhanded and the strike zone was left solely to the umpire’s discretion. Since the modern era of baseball began in 1900, there have now only been 22 perfect games. Some of the names on the list of 22 are well known (Cy Young, Sandy Koufax, and Randy Johnson), while others are not (Addie Joss, Dallas Braden, and Phillip Humber). It’s also notable who is not on the list – Nolan Ryan, Bob Gibson, Bob Feller, and Walter Johnson, among others.
MLB pitching records begin and end with the greatest ever, Cy Young. Young pitched the first perfect game in the modern era, a 3-0 Boston Americans win over the Philadelphia Athletics in 1904. No pitch clock then, but the game ended in a prompt 1 hour and 25 minutes. Young holds the MLB records for most wins (511), innings pitched, games started, and complete games. He threw three other no-hitters in his Hall of Fame career. He passed in 1955, and one year later the Cy Young Award was created to honor annually the best pitcher during the MLB season. It is now given to a pitcher in both Leagues.
A three-time Cy Young Award winner in the NL, Sandy Koufax, tops my list of pitchers who threw a perfect game (his was in 1965). The Dodger great pitched for six years (1955-1960) before he mastered the mound, but when he did, oh my. During the six-year stretch between 1961 and 1966, there has been no one more dominant. He led the NL in ERA for the last five of those years, in strikeouts four years (setting a then MLB record of 385 strikeouts in 1965), won three Cy Young awards, two World Series MVP awards, and led MLB in wins three of the years. Koufax was as close to perfection as anyone who has been on the mound.
Another dominant lefthanded pitcher of course is Randy Johnson, the “Big Unit”. One of my favorite moments in All-Star Game history is the at-bat of the Phillies John Kruk facing Johnson. Kruk basically threw in the white towel as he waved at three pitches. Johnson stood at 6 feet, 10 inches, and was certainly an imposing pitcher on the mound. He led the League in stikeouts nine times, and in ERA, winning percentage, and complete games four times. Johnson is a five-time winner of the Cy Young Award. In May 2004, at 40 years old, he threw MLB’s 17th perfect game. He is the oldest pitcher to have ever pitched a perfect game.
Perfect games sometimes come from unexpected sources. In September 1988, Tom Browning of the Reds pitched baseball’s 12th perfect game against the Los Angeles Dodgers. The game was played before just over 10,000 fans, many of whom had left before game’s end due to an extended rain delay. Browning was indeed a quality starting pitcher (winning 20 games as the NL Rookie of the Year in 1985 and sporting a record of 18-5 in 1988), but was more known for coaxing batters to put balls in play than overpowering them. An interesting sidelight to Browning’s successful career as a Red is that he is probably more known for his escapades during a 1993 game against the Cubs in Chicago. He appeared in full Reds uniform at a Wrigley Field rooftop with a hot dog and beer in hand.
In postseason play, perfection means the Yankees Don Larsen and his performance in Game 5 of the 1956 World Series. It remains the only perfect game in World Series history. Larsen won the World Series MVP Award for the historic outing, yet no one could have ever expected it. Larsen was basically a pedestrian pitcher for the Yankees and six other teams during his 15-year MLB career, compiling a lifetime win-loss record of 81-91. With German’s perfect game this past week, he joins Larsen and two other Yankee hurlers, David Wells and David Cone, as Pinstripers with perfect games.
German’s perfect game this past week was just as surprising as Larsen’s. German made his MLB debut in 2017 with the Yankees and has had sort of a checkered career to date – in 2020 he was suspended from baseball for 60 games due to a domestic violence incident; last year he spent 60 days on the injured list due to right shoulder impingement; and on May 16 this year he was ejected for an illegal substance violation. In German’s prior start before the perfect game last week, he was booed off the mound at Yankee Stadium. You have to give him much credit for rebounding, considering that he pitched the perfect game two days after his uncle’s death and dedicated the game to him.
Some naysayers note that German’s gem this past week came against the Oakland A’s, who have maintained MLB’s worst record since the start of the season. One of my blog followers this weekend passed along some fun facts to put it all in perspective. The A’s on-base percentage this year is a woeful .298 (the median MLB OBP this year is .320). An OPS of .298 means that there is a 70.2% chance for an A’s batter not to reach base. .702 to the 27th power is .00007, which means 7 out of 100,000 times one would project 27 outs in 27 at-bats. I call German’s outing absolutely Perfect!
Until next Monday,
your Baseball Bench Coach