Are We Really Complaining About Too Many No-Hitters?

Corey Kluber threw a no-hitter on Wednesday night and everyone agrees it was awesome and an incredible accomplishment worth celebrating.

Just kidding. People are complaining that there have been too many no-hitters this season. Kluber threw the second no-hitter in two nights and sixth of the season, joining Spencer Turnbull, Wade Miley, John Means, Carlos Rodon and Joe Musgrove in accomplishing one of the coolest things a pitcher can do.

So why is it a bad thing that we've seen six in six weeks? There's no guarantee there will be another one this season. Even if we're just one no-hitter away from tying the modern record for the most in a single season, we're still one away. Maybe we'll see one or two or more over the next few months. Isn't that good? Don't we want to see awesome baseball things? Apparently not. MLB changed the baseballs because players were hitting too many home runs. Now it's suddenly too hard to hit anything. No matter what baseball players are doing, someone has a problem with it.

Looking at scoring, teams are plating 4.35 runs per game through May 19th. That's down from 4.65 last season and even 4.45 in 2018, but it's still more than the 4.25 runs teams averaged in 2015. When McGwire and Sosa were teeing off at record rates in 1998 teams averaged 4.79 runs a game. Considering there have been six no-hitters dragging that scoring average down to 4.35 it doesn't seem bad.

There were seven no-hitters in 1990, 1991 and 2012. If you want to go back to before the "modern era," there were eight in 1884. For the record, I don't remember anyone complaining then.

There were four no-hitters in June 1990, including two on the same day when Dave Stewart and Fernando Valenzuela both did it on the 6/29. There was then a month an a half before the next no-hitter. There was one no-hitter in 2016 and one in 2017.

There is just no way to predict any of this. No-hitters are cool. Home runs are cool. Shohei Ohtani is cool. Enjoy them all while they're here.