No-hitter

A no-hitter is a completed game in which the opposing team fails to record a single hit, and it's one of the rarest feats a pitcher, or a pitching staff, can achieve, with roughly 300 thrown across MLB's entire history since 1876. A pitcher can still lose a no-hitter's game, or allow runs, since walks, errors and hit batters can put runners on base without a hit ever being recorded, which is why a no-hitter and a shutout aren't automatically the same thing even though they usually overlap. Nolan Ryan holds the all-time record with seven, a gap over the rest of the field that's never seriously been challenged. Combined no-hitters, thrown by multiple relievers in the same game, count officially but tend to generate less romance than one pitcher going the distance alone. History and highlights at Sports Illustrated.