The New York Mets have now had one no-hitter, but before that happened, Mets pitchers reached the fifth inning without yielding a hit 269 other times during the team’s 50+ years of existence.
Here’s the statistical breakdown of the Mets deepest failed no-nos (Through June 1, 2012):
- 160 potential Mets no-hitters were broken up in the fifth
- 68 potential Mets no-hitters were broken up in the sixth
- 23 potential Mets no-hitters were broken up in the seventh
(Plus one in the ’69 World Series, when Jerry Koosman lost his no-no in the 7th on a Paul Blair single) - 15 potential Mets no-hitters were broken up in the eighth
- 3 potential Mets no-hitters were broken up in the ninth (All by Seaver)
- 1 potential Mets no-hitter full reached its potential (June 1, 2012 – Johan Santana)
*Information used here was obtained free of charge from and is copyrighted by Retrosheet. Interested parties may contact Retrosheet at www.retrosheet.org.
[...] game against the Tampa Bay Rays. It was the 259th time a Mets hurler has gotten that far (See our Lost Mets no-hitters that reached at least the fifth inning page for more). Maine allowed just one other hit, also in the fifth, and Elmer Dessens and Sean [...]
[...] extended outing allowed us to update our Lost Mets no-hitters that reached at least the fifth inning page for the first time since April 20, when Mike Pelfrey took one against the Chicago Cubs into [...]
[...] the second time in recent days we’ve gotten to update our Lost Mets no-hitters that reached at least the fifth inning page. (On Aug. 7, Johan Santana reached the fifth inning against the Phillies when Placido Polanco [...]
the site is hilarious but your math doesn’t add up! 157+67+22+15+3=264 times that no-nos had been broken up, not 263 like it says at the top of the page. good luck.
Thanks. We had forgotten to update the total after Gee’s long stretch.
“Most recently, David Gee in his major league debut reached the sixth inning Sept. 7, 2010 when Willie Harris broke it up with homer.”
Is that a typo, or is there a reason I’m missing for calling Dillon Gee “David”?
Yep, that’s a typo. Thanks.
So Tom Seaver is the ONLY pitcher in Mets history to ever take a no-no to the 9th…and he did it three times? (Curse you, Jimmy Qualls, Leron Lee, and Joe Wallis! Curse you!) “Tom Terrific”, indeed.
Before his 1975 act of perfidy, Joe Wallis was best known for coming to bat in a spring-training game that season, wearing the wrong batting helmet. (A switch-hitter, Wallis went up batting righty against the Oakland A’s, but he was wearing his LHB helmet, and the ear-flap was protecting the ear nearer the catcher, not the one facing the pitcher.)
“Maybe he’s expecting a sweeping curveball,” one press-box wag said, according Roger Angell in The New Yorker.