Arizona Diamondbacks pitchers Madison Bumgarner and Zac Gallen completely shut down the Atlanta Braves in a doubleheader on Sunday. In Game 1, Gallen threw seven scoreless innings and allowed just one hit in a 5-0 Arizona win. And Bumgarner topped that effort in Game 2.
Bumgarner threw a no-hitter over seven innings in Arizona’s 7-0 win to complete the doubleheader sweep. The only baserunner Bumgarner allowed was on an error by shortstop Nick Ahmed.
However, the no-hitter doesn’t count as an official no-hitter due to only being seven innings (the length of doubleheader games) instead of nine.
MLB Network’s Jon Heyman reports that Major League Baseball and Elias are discussing whether or not it’s an official no-hitter.
But it’s certainly understandable why it *wouldn’t* be counted as an official no-hitter; the challenge of getting 27 outs is much more difficult than getting 21 outs, and there have been plenty of no-hitters lost in the eighth and ninth innings.
Either way, it was an incredible performance by Bumgarner (a four-time All-Star and three-time World Series champion), who had performed horribly with Arizona entering this outing (7.16 ERA over 13 starts in 2020-21). Sunday’s version of Bumgarner is much more like the pitcher the Diamondbacks thought they were getting when they signed the southpaw to a five-year, $85 million deal ahead of the 2020 season.