Dodgers' 3 near-miss no-hitters prompt deep dive into season-long, MLB-wide drought

On Sept. 6, Yoshinobu Yamamoto got just two strikes away from completing the first no-hitter of his MLB career. On Sept. 8, the Dodgers were just three outs away from completing a combined no-hitter off the back of seven almost-perfect innings from Tyler Glasnow. The next day, Emmet Sheehan took a perfect game into the sixth.

Apart from the heartbreak and embarrassment of the bullpen breakdown that came after Yamamoto and Tanner Scott continuing his villain arc by spoiling the combined no-hitter, the Dodgers' baffling, always foiled flirtations with no-nos brought up a weird quirk of the 2025 season. No one's thrown a no-hitter.

If Jackson Holliday's home run off of Yamamoto had fallen just short and into Andy Pages' glove, Yamamoto's would've been the first no-hitter of the year in the last month of the season. There have been a number of complete games and even a few complete game shutouts, but they've all fallen short of the no-hitter.

The Dodgers' near-misses prompted Jayson Stark of The Athletic to take a closer look at the conspicuous lack this season. He writes that baseball has seen at least one no-hitter in each of its last 19 seasons, but that streak might come to an end this year.

Dodgers' lost no-hitters warranted deeper dive into MLB's complete lack of no-nos this season

A no-hitter is already kind of a statistical wonder; an average of only two have been thrown every year since 1876 for a total of 326 (both combined and individual). The last regular season no-hitter to be thrown was the Cubs' combined effort behind a Shōta Imanaga start against the Pirates on Sept. 4 of last year. Then-Giants ace Blake Snell threw the last individual no-hitter against the Reds on Aug. 2.

Dirk Lammers of NoNoHitters.com said, "Its so random. I mean, you get bloop singles. You get homers that barely clear the wall. So there's no rhyme or reason to these things."

Stark notes that there's still time for someone to step up and fill the void in the season. Since 1900, seven no-hitters have been thrown in September, with the last being the Marlins' Anibal Sánchez against the Diamondbacks on Sept. 6, 2006.

Could it be a Dodger that finally does it? With the way their starters have been pitching, maybe so. Two no-hitters taken into the ninth within the span of two days is absolutely absurd, and then Sheehan went and tacked on five perfect innings the very next day. If it's going to happen for anybody after so many shortcomings, it'd be the Dodgers.