No Hitters Are Overrated

Yesterday, Francisco Liriano of the Minnesota Twins threw a no hitter against the struggling Chicago White Sox.  Today, Tim Hudson of the Atlanta Braves pitched a one-hit complete game shutout to complete a doubleheader sweep over the potent Milwaukee Brewers.  Sports media covered Liriano's no-no extensively, and he's received tons of recognition (deservedly so) for his accomplishment over the past 24 hours.  Hudson, on the other hand, will get a few compliments from Buster Olney on Baseball Tonight before his gem gets lost in a sea of other complete game shutouts. 

But which game was more impressive?  I'm not trying to take anything away from Liriano - he held a major league baseball team without a hit for nine innings and single-handedly gave his team a 1-0 intra-division win.  But other than the big ole' zero under "hits" in the box score, Liriano's game paled in comparison to Hudson's.  Liriano scattered six walks over his nine innings, and allowed several hard hit balls that the Twins defense turned into outs thanks to a number of impressive plays.  He only struck out two batters (not that strikeouts are a great measure of pitching dominance, either), labored through 123 pitches (and only 66 strikes) and had a 9:5 groundout to flyout ratio.  In short, it was an "ugly" and improbable no hitter, but a no hitter nonetheless.

Contrast this with Hudson who, despite allowing one hit (a solid double by Rickie Weeks), struck out six and walked only one.  He threw only 102 pitches (74 for strikes) and induced 15 groundouts versus only 4 flyouts.  In short, he was completely in control of the entire game, forcing the Brewer batters to put the ball in play and hit weak ground balls to the infielders.  There was no luck involved in his masterpiece - Hudson owned Milwaukee today.  Can Liriano say the same about his game versus the South Siders?

You can (and I will) argue that Hudson's shutout was more impressive than Lirano's.

Some of the most impressive games I can recall watching in my lifetime weren't perfect games or even no hitters (though I will admit that Randy Johnson's perfect game against Atlanta was the best I've ever seen).  Greg Maddux needed only 76 pitches to get through a complete game over the Chicago Cubs on July 22, 1997; he did allow five hits and a run, but threw only 13 balls the entire game.  A 20-year-old Kerry Wood allowed one single to the Astros on May 6, 1998 - he also struck out 20 batters in that game and walked zero (you should check out the box score for that one because it's amazing to look at).  The point?  While we shouldn't discredit no hitters, we have to realize that starts that do involve hits (and even runs) allowed can be just as, if not more, impressive.