Baseball Analytics: Comparing 2012’s No-Hitters

Homer Bailey tossed the seventh no-hitter of the 2012 season last night, blanking the Pittsburgh Pirates while striking out 10 batters. Bailey mostly stuck with his fastball, throwing it nearly 70% of the time, and he mixed his pitch location by giving Pittsburgh about the same number of pitches at the letters (37% of his pitches were thrown high) as at the knees (34% thrown low).

Here’s a look at the pitch frequency heat maps, pitch mix and pitch location for all of 2012’s no-hitters. These guys dominated with drastically diverging styles. Bailey emphasized his heater, but Felix Hernandez and Phil Humber relied more on breaking and off-speed stuff. While Jered Weaver challenged hitters high in the zone, Felix, Johan Santana, six Mariners pitchers who threw a combined no-no, and Matt Cain kept the ball low. Humber hammered the strike zone. Johan rarely put anything over the plate. All had different approaches, and all had historic days.

Thanks to Toth.