First, a little history. Mark Buehrle threw a perfect game against the Tampa Bay Rays a few years ago. I watched the game, and it was obvious all game that Buehrle was only going to throw offspeed pitches. As I watched, I was extremely frustrated that the Ray hitters kept looking fastball, when Buehrle wasn’t throwing any. I said this all game, and later found out the Tampa Bay announcers were also upset and saying this all game. After the game, Buehrle said he threw less than 5 fastballs. Buehrle pitched well, but the batters kept getting themselves out. I made the statement after the game that a large part of the perfect game was due to the terrible strategy and failure to adjust by the Ray hitters, and this was debated by Sox fans. I also said that no-hitters and perfect games were much more common, and although a great achievement, it’s obviously not as hard as it was in the past to throw one. Again, Sox fans argued with me. Sox fans also said Tampa Bay had a great-hitting team, so Buehrle’s game was a dominant performance. I responded by saying that “great-hitting team” got itself out over and over.
Now, to today. Felix Hernandez threw a perfect game against the Rays. If I count the perfect game a few years ago that the umpire blew on the final play (it truly was a perfect game), that means there have been 24 perfect games in history. 7 have been in the last 4 years, and 3 have been against the Rays. So, almost 30% of the perfect games have been thrown in the last 4 years, making this somewhat easier than in the past. The Rays have been the victims of a perfect game 3 times since 2009 and have been no-hit once since 2009, meaning they have been no-hit 4 times since 2009. No other team has been no-hit in that time more than once. This means the Rays have a greater chance of being no-hit than other teams. Tonight, Hernandez struck out 12 batters, ALL on offspeed pitches! So, it’s obvious nothing has changed, and again, the Ray batters didn’t adjust.
The Sox fans were obviously wrong.