Kiyoshi Mio-USA TODAY Sports
On Saturday at Citi Field, Max Fried was unhittable. For seven innings, the 30-year-old lefty baffled the Mets, surviving a handful of hard-hit balls, including two that would have been home runs in several other ballparks. But because he walked three batters, went to a three-ball count against five others, and needed 24 pitches to complete the seventh while running his count to a season-high 109, Fried got the hook from manager Brian Snitker.
He could only watch as J.D. Martinez — who had already hit two scorchers of at least 105 mph off Fried — clubbed a solo homer off closer Raisel Iglesias with two outs in the ninth. The Mets’ rally would ultimately fall short, but the run left the Braves still searching for their first no-hitter since Kent Mercker’s gem on April 8, 1994. If Fried’s hitless outing evoked a sense of déjà vu, that’s because he did a very similar thing just 12 days earlier.
On April 29 in Seattle, he and the Mariners’ Bryce Miller each held the opposing lineup hitless through six innings, the first time two pitchers did that in the same game in just over three full years. Miller faltered first, giving up an infield single to Ronald Acuña Jr., who came around to score; meanwhile, Fried departed after 100 pitches, and while Pierce Johnson pitched a hitless seventh inning, Joe Jiménez surrendered a single in the eighth. Unlike on Saturday, the Braves lost that one on a walk-off homer.
With those two hitless outings, Fried joined some select company. In the post-1960 expansion era, just four other pitchers have made two hitless starts of at least six innings in the same season, five if we consider the postseason:
| Player | Team | Season | Count | No-Hitter |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Justin Verlander | HOU | 2022 | 3 | 0 |
| Dean Chance | MIN | 1967 | 2 | 1 |
| Nolan Ryan | CAL | 1973 | 2 | 2 |
In his first season back from Tommy John surgery, the 39-year-old Verlander — who already had three no-hitters under his belt — was pulled after five hitless innings twice and after six hitless innings once. The Astros bullpen failed to finish the job any of those times, but they did so twice in a pair of starts by Javier that same season, the second of which took place in Game 4 of the World Series. None of the other outings above became the first leg of a combined no-hitter, though prior to a 1991 rule change that limited the definitions of no-hitters and perfect games to those of at least nine innings, Chance’s five perfect innings against the Red Sox in a rain-shortened game on August 6, 1967 was considered a perfect game.
Ryan’s incomplete effort was on Opening Day, April 9, 1990, a point at which he already had thrown five no-hitters. He tapped out after 91 pitches and five innings, having walked four batters. “I knew I wasn’t going to go nine tonight, so I didn’t give it any thought… If we had a full spring training, it would have been different,” he said afterwards, alluding to a lockout-shortened spring training that had limited the buildup of his pitch count.
