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:
- A miss-translation of MLB’s ballpark dimension rules allowed 11 NPB owners to browbeat Nippon Ham in 2022 over the distance between their new park’s stands and home plate.
- Japan’s miss-translation of MLB’s save rule created a similar rule here in which it was slightly easier to record saves. This was weird in that my noticing the discrepancy led to NPB changing its rule, and likely costing Kyuji Fujikawa the chance to set Japan’s single-season save record in 2007.
Shukan Baseball Online informed us of this Saturday, while the games are also documented on a fairly new NPB page titled “near no-hit shutouts.” You should check this one out, since it also contains a list of those no-hitters lost with two outs in the ninth inning, and the no-hitters that evaporated in extra innings.
Anyway, here is an introduction to the four no-no’s that no one talks about.
May 6, 1939. This was the first spring of Japanese pro baseball with only a single season instead of spring, summer or fall leagues. That day the Hankyu Braves hosted the Nankai Hawks in the opener of a double header at Koshien, while the Hawks hosted the nightcap with the Braves winning both games 2-1.
The Hawks’ Yoshikichi Miyaguchi allowed seven hits and three walks in eight innings to take the complete-game loss in the opener. He then started the nightcap and allowed an unearned run on six walks but no hits over six innings. Miyaguchi left with the game tied 1-1, but reliever Shotaro Hirano surrendered another unearned run in his three innings on a walk and no hits. Back in the day, real pitchers, it seems, not only finished what they started but came back for seconds. Even so, the night-cap was Japanese pro baseball’s first combined no-hitter.
Aug. 3, 1939. The Eagles’ Tadashi Kameda, who would probably win a “most likely to throw a no-hitter while walking 10 batters” poll, did just that while allowing two unearned runs to Nagoya Kinko in a 2-1 loss at Nishinomiya Stadium. Kameda, who set Japan’s major league record for walks in a season that year, 280 in 371 innings, would, however, fall a walk short the following March, when he walked nine his first no-hit shutout against Lion, also at Nishinomiya. he threw his third no-hitter, and the second one that counts in Japan, on April 14, 1940, at Tokyo’s Korakuen Stadium against the Hanshin Tigers.
May 21, 1959. A month before he became a principle actor in Japanese pro baseball’s most famous game as the losing pitcher on a Shigeo Nagashima sayonara home run in the first pro game attended by a Japanese Emperor on June 25, Hanshin Tigers’ Hall of Famer Minoru Murayama threw his only career no-hitter in a 3-2 win over the Giants at Koshien Stadium. It was the Tigers’ first no-hitter against the Giants after they had been no-hit by Hall of Famer Eiji Sawamura in 1936 and 1937.
May 13, 1964. Another combined effort in the Kintetsu Buffaloes’ 3-1 win over the Nankai Hawks at Osaka’s Namba Stadium. The Buffaloes, who would go on to finish last, 28-1/2 games behind the Hawks that year, started Noboru Makino, who allowed a run on four walks, the last of which led to the Hawks’ earned run – on two stolen bases and a groundout that tied it 1-1 before Kintetsu scored twice in the eighth.
