When a One-Hitter is Better than a No-Hitter, But Not Quite Perfect

As happy as I am for Mets fans and Johann Santana for his no-hitter, his performance was hardly the epitome of dominance. R.A. Dickey pitched a one-hitter last night, where he walked none and threw only 106 pitches, whereas Santana walked five batters and threw over 130 pitches, risking his season and recovery from shoulder trouble.

While Dickey pitched an excellent game, his performance did not was not the top story in the news. Matt Cain matched Sandy Koufax in throwing the most dominant perfect game in the history of baseball, according to Bill James’s metric Game Score.

Pitcher Date Pitches Hits Strikeouts Walks Game Score
Cain June 13, 2012 125 0 14 0 101
Dickey June 13, 2012 106 1 12 0 95
Santana June 1, 2012 134 0 8 5 90

So while Santana’s game was pretty nifty, Dickey bested him by Game Score: Dickey had one base runner compared to Santana’s five. Dickey had the misfortune of pitching a great game not only after the biggest pitching moment in history of the Mets, but also on the same night as one of the greatest performances in the history of the game. Not bad for a thirty-seven year old knuckle-ball pitcher.

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