Mets Finally Get No-No

Yesterday evening, my Twitter feed exploded with the news that Johan Santana had done a first in the history of the Mets organization. The event? Everyone was in awe of Mr. Santana and his no-hit gem. It is amazing to think about other pitchers who have played for the Mets but did not get a no-no. To wit: Nolan Ryan (owner of 7 no-hitters) played for the Mets but did not get his first until he left for the Angels. Tom Seaver threw several one-hitters. Doc Gooden was dominant in his day, but never went 9 innings with 0 hits. Johan is in rare company, and alone in his entire organization. Not bad work!

But how does this compare to other no-hitters? As per Baseball-Reference, there have been 178 regular season no-hitters thrown since 1918 (the first year individual game data is available). Interestingly, aside from poor Ken Johnson in 1964, all no-hitters ended in a win. I highly doubt you want a break down all 178 games, so how about we look at the no-hitters from 2010 to the present?

The past few years have been largely dominated by pitching. In that regard, I feel much more comfortable comparing no-hitters from the past 3 years than to one during the power era of the '90s- early 2000s. With that critera, B-Ref gave me a query of 11 games. This is excluding Roy Halladay's no-hitter in the playoffs that was, honestly, other-worldly. The pitchers, in chronological order: 2010-- Ubaldo Jimenez, Dallas Braden (perfect game), Roy Halladay (perfect game), Edwin Jackson, Matt Garza. 2011-- Francisco Liriano, Justin Verlander, Ervin Santana. 2012-- Phil Humber (perfect game), Jered Weaver, Johan Santana. Aside from a couple of random names, this is a list of very good players. How did Santana (Johan) do?