All Time Leaders | 'Top 1,000' Name: Games: Rank: Jesse Orosco: 1,252: 1: Mike Stanton: 1,178: 2: John Franco: 1,119: 3: Mariano Rivera: 1,115: 4: Dennis Eckersley: 1,071: 5: Hoyt Wilhelm: 1,070: 6: Dan Plesac: 1,064: 7: Mike Timlin: 1,058: 8: Kent Tekulve: 1,050: 9: LaTroy Hawkins: 1,042: 10: Trevor Hoffman: 1,035: 11 ...
Over the 154 years of Major League Baseball history, and over 235,500 games played, there have been 24 official perfect games by the current definition. No pitcher has thrown more than one.
Lee Richmond: June 12, 1880
Richmond threw the first perfect game in MLB history, as the Worcester Ruby Legs defeated the Cleveland Blues. He fanned five batters in the game.
Necciai is the only professional pitcher to record 27 strikeouts in a nine-inning game, and a ball from that 7-0 win over the Welch Miners – which Necciai donated to the Hall of Fame in 2001 – is on display in the Museum's One for the Books exhibit.
Individual pitchers have thrown two straight no-hitters seven times: Addie Joss 1908 and 1910; Vander Meer in 1938; Allie Reynolds in 1951; Warren Spahn in 1960 and 1961; Ryan twice, first in 1973, then in 1974 and 1975; and Homer Bailey in 2012 and 2013.
Ryan also pitched 18 two-hitters. Despite this, he never pitched a perfect game, nor did he ever win a Cy Young Award; both were largely attributed to his high walk rate. Ryan is one of only 29 players in baseball history to have appeared in MLB games in four different decades.
Nolan Ryan didn't throw any perfect games in his career.
Cy Young holds the MLB win record with 511; Walter Johnson is second with 417. Young and Johnson are the only players to earn 400 or more wins. Among pitchers whose entire careers were in the post-1920 live-ball era, Warren Spahn has the most wins with 363.
Walter Johnson
“The Big Train ranks #1 due to his longevity and dominance. Consider Johnson's career rank among pitchers who threw 2,000+ innings in their career (397 players),” writes Pitcher List. Johnson put together a stellar career but also had some of the most impressive single-season efforts in MLB history.
Most wins in a Major League season
Charles Radbourn holds the Major League single-season record for most games won. Charles "Old Hoss" Radbourn holds the single-season record for the most games won in a major league season; he notched 59 victories in 1884. There is a discrepancy in Radbourn's victory total in 1884.
MLB records
In Major League Baseball (MLB), the record for the most no decisions by a starting pitcher in a single season (dating back to at least 1908) is 20, held by Bert Blyleven in 1979 and Zach Davies in 2022. Tommy John has the all-time record of 188 career no decisions.
So what Lonnie Smith did against him is amazing. A right-handed batter, Smith has the best career batting average and best career on-base percentage of any hitter with at least 30 plate appearances against Ryan. Smith hit . 500 (12-for-24) with five walks versus Ryan.
Thus, tales of Nolan Ryan's 108.1 mph fastball in 1974 or Bob Feller's 107.6 mph pitch in 1946 remain unofficial. After spending multiple seasons with the New York Yankees, Chapman recently finalized a one-year deal with the Kansas City Royals for the 2023 season.
On the same day that Rickey Henderson broke Lou Brock's all-time steals record, Nolan Ryan made history as well, recording his major league record seventh no-hitter. On May 1, 1991, at the age of 44, Ryan became the oldest player to register a no-hitter.
The lowest pitch count in a perfect game is 74 pitches by Addie Joss of the Cleveland Guardians (then known as the Cleveland Naps) on October 2, 1908, against the Chicago White Sox.
The rarest achievement for a pitcher is a perfect game, in which not a single player on the opposing team gets on base. Because there are no hits in a perfect game, all perfect games are no-hitters. And it's impossible to score without getting on base, of course, so a perfect game is also a de facto shutout.
"At the beginning of every major-league game, an average pitcher facing a lineup of average hitters has a . 000983 percent chance of pitching a perfect game," according to numbers crunched by smart people in a 2012 SBNATION article. That's about 1 perfect game for every 34 seasons, according to SBNATION.
In 1920, a rule was put into effect by Major League Baseball that outlawed the spitball and other substance-abuse type pitches. A group of pitchers who depended upon the spitball pitch were officially listed and allowed to continue throwing it for the remainder of their career.
Lester's no-hitter against the Kansas City Royals proved to be the last not only at Fenway Park, but also by a Red Sox pitcher. It also put Varitek in the record books as the only major leaguer to catch four no-hitters — Ruiz would tie the record in 2015.
The most recent perfect game for MLB occurred on June 28, 2023, with Domingo Germán of the New York Yankees against the Oakland Athletics in a 11–0 victory, finishing with 9 strikeouts.