Matt Garza Tosses 5th No-Hitter Of 2010

The Year or the Pitcher continued to live up to its name last night as Matt Garza of the Tampa Bay Rays notched the league’s 5th no-hitter of the season and we are not even 2/3rds of the way through. Garza allowed only one walk and faced the minimum 27 batters to complete the first no-hitter in Rays history. There are now only two franchises in the MLB who have never thrown a no-hitter, the San Diego Padres and of course the New York Mets (who will never thrown one, ever).

Nobody quite knows why pitchers have been so dominant this year but batting averages, home run totals and ERA’s are the lowest they’ve been in decades while across the board starters’ win totals are up. Over the last few seasons it was commonly assumed that the days of 20-wins were over and we would never see another 300-win pitcher (which still may be true). 2010 may be evidence of the cyclical nature of the game as the steroid era seems to have finally come to a close and we could see another era of pitching dominance like that of the 1960s and early 70s before rule changes were instituted benefit hitters. Only time will tell on that but it’s interesting to note.

Side note: It’s an intriguing happenstance that in the Year of the Pitcher we have seen the most viable Triple Crown contenders in recent memory (Miguel Cabrera of the Tigers being the most notable with a .349 avg, 24 HRs and 88 RBI’s). The last Triple Crowns occurred in the 1960s, the aforementioned period of pitching dominance, it would be an interesting correlation if we saw the first Triple Crown in 43 years in a year like 2010.