For some reason, probably a miss-translation, Japanese pro baseball only counts no-hitters that are also shutouts. Daichi Osera’s gem on Friday., June 7, was the 102nd of those thrown in Japan’s majors during the regular season. I knew of at least one other, but hadn’t done the leg work to identify more. So I was happy to learn that Osera’s no-hitter was actually the 104th individual effort.

This information allows us to correct a sentence that was bandied about a lot last year when Yoshinobu Yamamoto threw his no-hitter. At the time, Kyodo News wrote:

“In September, Yamamoto threw a no-hitter for the second consecutive year, something previously accomplished in 1936 and 1937 by Sawamura and in 1940 and 1941 by Tadashi Kameda.”

While that is true, it is precise only if we limit these three pitchers’ no-hitters only to shutouts… Because the record for consecutive seasons with a no-hitter is not two, but three.

As for why Japan’s rule for counting no-hitters is different from MLB’s, my guess is that a miss-translation on this side likely caused generations of Japanese to believe that only shutouts could be no-hitters. There are at least two precedents for this:

Continue reading The forgotten 4 & miss-translations →