Francisco Liriano: Debating the Legitamacy of His No-Hitter

No-hitters are the greatest thing to watch in baseball. Every time a fan enters a ballpark, the one thing that they hope to witness is a no-hitter.

A no-hitter has a certain prominence, a grand mystique about it. A pitcher who happens to throw one of these remarkable games is promised a spot in baseball folklore.

Fans, players and analysts alike always debate which major sports record is the most difficult to break. Joe DiMaggio's 56 game hitting streak and Cal Ripken Jr.'s 2,131 consecutive games played are always mentioned in that discussion. But a record that often gets lost in the mix is Nolan Ryan's seven career no-hitters.

I, for one, do not foresee anyone ever coming close to that record. Only 24 men, aside from Ryan, have thrown multiple no-hitters in baseball history. And of those 24 pitchers, only two (Roy Halladay and Mark Buehrle) are active.

On a chilly Tuesday night in Chicago, one of the 270 no-hitters in Major League Baseball history occurred. Francisco Liriano of the Minnesota Twins beat the Chicago White Sox, 1-0, without yielding a base hit.

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	R	H	E
MIN	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	1	6	0
CHI	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0

But, if one was to look deeper into Liriano's numbers, they would be surprised to find what is truly there. Liriano walked six batters while only striking out two, he threw 123 pitches and looked dead-tired in the ninth inning, and he had never pitched a complete game in his Major League career.

Liriano and his lively 27-year-old left arm entered the May 3 contest at U.S. Cellular Field in Chicago with a 2-4 record and an ERA of over nine. A win against the struggling White Sox was a definite possibility. But the notion of a no-no for Francisco was definitely out of the realm of articulate predictions.

But that is what makes no-hitters so great. A pitcher can blank a team on any given night. It's one of the few examples of parity left in the sports world. Since 2006, 13 different pitchers have tossed a no-no. Only Roy Halladay has won the Cy Young Award as the best pitcher in his respective league.

So despite the unimpressive statistics and a lack of any foresight on this marvelous event, Francisco Liriano's no-hitter is as impressive as any other.

This is due to the importance of one set of statistics, and one set only.

No hits, no runs, no errors.

Josh Rosenblat is a high school student from Chicago looking to find a way to break into sports journalism. He often writes about the NBA (primarily the Chicago Bulls), as well as the MLB, College Basketball, and the NFL. You can email him at [e-mail] or follow him on twitter @JMRosenblat. Feel free to send him comments.