The Plays Behind Max Scherzer

When Chris Heston threw a no-hitter, it was a good reminder that, on any given day, any given pitcher might shut down any given lineup, that baseball history isn’t limited to being made by those names you find on team shirjeys. When Max Scherzer threw a no-hitter over the weekend, it was a good reminder that, while any given pitcher can throw a no-hitter on any given day, the probability favors the best ones. Few pitchers in the game are better than Max Scherzer; few pitchers carry higher no-hitter odds than Max Scherzer. It’s not that this sort of thing was going to happen, but no one should’ve been surprised that it did.

The enduring conversation is about the elbow that potentially turned a perfect game into something a little less perfect, and that’s understandable, because it’s different. We never really see that happen, so it’s what we want to talk about. But if you take a step back, that one pitch does little to diminish Scherzer’s brilliance, and he still didn’t allow a single hit. And that’s going to be the focus here, as it was after Heston’s game. Many have argued that the no-hitter has lost some of its sheen over the years, with strikeouts up and offense down and with a greater understanding of DIPS theory. Yet a no-hitter is still a special and memorable performance, and we’re able to analyze them differently than ever before. In the course of throwing his no-hitter, Scherzer struck out 10 Pirates. What happened in the 17 other at-bats?

I’ve tried to do what I tried to do after the Heston game. That is, estimate hit probabilities based on the balls put in play during a no-hitter. Thanks to Statcast, we’ve got batted-ball velocities, and we have batted-ball types and hitter handedness. All that’s left for me is trying to guess at the batted-ball angle, which I think I can do well enough. Liberal use has been made of Baseball Savant. For all the balls in play, I calculated a rough expected average, given an average defense and an average park. It was based on balls with similar exit velocities, and similar angles.

Just like before, I want to make it clear this is experimental. It’s far from a perfect analysis, because the samples are small, and because I don’t have launch angle off the bat. Everything here is an estimate, based on a few months of data, and it doesn’t account for, say, specific parks, or specific defensive alignments. But I like this stuff, just because it’s new stuff, a new approach to looking at a sort of game that’s been happening for more than a century. What’s the harm, right? Here are the balls in play against Max Scherzer, and the estimated expected averages, based on similar balls hit in 2015:

That’s pretty striking, in that all the averages are low. Many of them are straight-up zero, because those types of batted balls have yet to yield a hit. Not a single ball in play looks here like a real threat to go for a hit, and while, again, this is just an experiment, this is further evidence that Scherzer really was extremely dominant against a good lineup. This wasn’t one of those no-hitters with memorable defensive plays behind the pitcher. This was a pitcher generating fly balls in between strikeouts, and fly balls tend to get caught. Even the line drives were more like fly balls, with basically nothing resembling a frozen rope.

I imagine there are probably people trying to figure out which of Scherzer’s last two starts was better. Both were complete games. In one, Scherzer struck out 16 while allowing one hit. In the other, Scherzer struck out 10 while allowing zero hits. Interestingly, the average batted ball in the no-hitter was 10 miles per hour harder than the average batted ball in the one-hitter, so that’s a factor we couldn’t have discussed a year ago. I’m not interested in picking a favorite start. I’d probably pick the first one, the one with the hit, but both were amazing, and they were turned in by the same pitcher, in consecutive starts. That’s incredible.

Among the notable defensive plays, there was this one by Danny Espinosa, who did well to keep Pedro Alvarez from reaching:

It’s a good play, and maybe the estimated average above is too low. The Nationals had Alvarez extremely shifted, and he didn’t pull the ball quite as much as they thought he might. But still, it’s a groundball hit into the shift by a pretty slow lefty slugger. It’s a good ball in play to generate, for the pitcher, and the result was there. Another notable defensive play had zero immediate risk of turning into a hit:

The risk there was that a non-catch would extend the at-bat, and at the very least cost Scherzer an extra pitch or three. It wasn’t the most difficult defensive play ever made, but Anthony Rendon did need to worry about getting close to the dugout. I’ve never had to make a catch in a game while closing in on some sort of immovable barrier, but I have been forced to drive really close to walls and assorted other obstacles, and it can mess with the head.

The most well-struck ball in play was this in-between fly ball/liner from Francisco Cervelli:

Statcast tracked the ball at 101 miles per hour, which is substantial, but as you watch the play, you see the ball had very little chance of actually finding turf. Denard Span barely had to move, as Cervelli didn’t strike the ball with a low-enough launch angle, or a high-enough launch angle. Or maybe there just wasn’t enough backspin, I don’t know, but regardless, that was a well-hit ball that was also a routine out.

If Scherzer could be said to have gotten “lucky”, you could point out that there were a few flies that were a tick or two away from extra-base hits. This is where the final out of the game was caught:

Another, say, two miles per hour, and that’s off the wall or over it. This early Starling Marte drive had the highest expected average:

And there was this, hit by Jordy Mercer:

Under very slightly altered conditions, maybe you’ve got a home run, or a double, or a few of them. This is why, while pitchers have some control over home runs allowed, you have to regress all of them — whether a fly ball goes for an out or a dinger is part skill and part luck. To Mercer, Scherzer could’ve thrown the same pitch, and Mercer could’ve taken basically the same swing, and that could’ve been four bases, with nothing having been different about Scherzer’s performance. But I don’t mean to take away from what was accomplished. Mercer hit the ball 94 miles per hour. He didn’t hit it hard enough, and that’s the only thing that matters.

Yeah, every no-hitter is a slight tweak away from being just another well-pitched game. Maybe, for you, that diminishes the appeal of a no-hitter, but it should also heighten the appeal of particular well-pitched non-no-hitters. Like, say, Max Scherzer’s start the time before. Over the weekend, Scherzer threw a no-hitter, that might’ve otherwise been a one-hitter. The previous time out, he threw a one-hitter, that easily could’ve been a no-hitter. That’s silly. Historic events themselves in part depend on baseball-y caprice. But Max Scherzer is becoming a historic player.