Key takeaways
- Settle the length first: since 1991 a hitless game shorter than nine innings is not an official no-hitter, even when it is a complete, official game.
- Then ask whether any batter reached base: if none did, it is a perfect game; if batters reached only by walks, hit batters, errors or a dropped third strike, it can still be a no-hitter.
- Treat a shutout as a separate question about runs: a pitcher can allow several hits and still throw one, and a rain-shortened complete game still qualifies.
- Quote any count of perfect games with its source and date, because the total changes whenever a new one is thrown.
- In a simulated season, read a single hitless start as one sampled result and judge the pitcher on rate statistics across several seasons.
A no-hitter is a game of at least nine innings in which a team's pitcher or pitchers allow no hits. A perfect game is stricter: across at least nine innings, no opposing batter reaches base by any means — no hits, no walks, no hit batters, no errors. Every perfect game is also a no-hitter, but a no-hitter can contain walks, errors and even runs. A shutout is a third and separate idea: it is about runs rather than hits, and a pitcher can allow several hits and still throw one.
None of the three is defined in quite the place you might expect. The 2026 edition of the Official Baseball Rules defines a shutout in Rule 9.18, but it has no entry for a no-hitter or a perfect game. Those two definitions come from a 1991 ruling and from the Elias Sports Bureau, which MLB.com describes as Major League Baseball's official statistician.
The three feats side by side
| Shutout | No-hitter | Perfect game | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What the opponent may not do | Score a run | Get a hit | Reach base at all |
| Hits allowed | Yes | No | No |
| Walks, hit batters, errors allowed | Yes | Yes | No |
| Runs allowed | No | Possible, without a hit | None in nine innings, because nobody reaches |
| Minimum length | A complete game, including one shortened by rain | Nine innings | Nine innings |
| Shared between pitchers | The team is credited; an individual needs the complete game | Yes: "a pitcher or pitchers" | Defined by the game: no batter reaches base safely |
| Where the definition lives | Official Baseball Rule 9.18 | 1991 MLB committee ruling | Elias Sports Bureau |
The order of strictness is the useful part. A perfect game meets every condition of a no-hitter and adds one more, so it is the rarer and more demanding feat. A shutout runs on a different axis entirely: a pitcher can scatter hits all afternoon and still finish with one, while a no-hitter can, in principle, be lost.
Where each definition comes from
The shutout is written into the rulebook
Rule 9.18 calls a shutout "a statistic credited to a pitcher who allows no runs in a game" and requires that pitcher to pitch the complete game. There is one narrow exception: a reliever who enters with nobody out in the first inning, before the opponent has scored, and then finishes the game without allowing a run.
MLB's glossary entry on shutouts spells out what that means in practice. The pitcher has to be on the mound for every out, so nine scoreless innings are not enough if the game goes into extra innings. A game shortened by rain still counts if he pitched all of it and allowed no runs. And when relievers finish a scoreless game, the team is credited with the shutout rather than any single pitcher.
The no-hitter was only defined in 1991
According to the National Baseball Hall of Fame, Major League Baseball's Committee for Statistical Accuracy, chaired by Commissioner Fay Vincent, defined a no-hitter for the first time in 1991. Its wording: a pitcher or pitchers "allows no hits during the entire course of a game, which consists of at least nine innings."
MLB.com quotes the same ruling in slightly different words — nine innings or more without a hit — and adds that the committee treated a hitless game of fewer than nine innings as a "notable achievement" rather than a no-hitter.
The perfect game's wording comes from Elias
When MLB scheduled seven-inning doubleheader games in 2020, MLB.com reported how Elias would treat them. A scheduled seven-inning game would produce no official no-hitter unless it went to extra innings and reached nine without a hit. And Elias defined the stricter feat directly: "A perfect game is a game of at least nine innings where no batter reaches base safely."
The games that stopped counting
The 1991 definition was applied to the past as well as the future. The Hall of Fame's account lists three kinds of game it removed: no-hitters shortened by rain, no-hitters broken up in extra innings, and eight-inning games pitched by a losing team on the road. The eight-member committee deleted 50 no-hitters from the record in all.
The best-known casualty was Harvey Haddix's 12 perfect innings on May 26, 1959, a game he lost in the 13th inning. A rain-shortened, five-inning no-hitter from September 1988 went too.
The road-team case is the one that surprises people. Official Baseball Rule 7.01(a) shortens a game when the home team "needs none of its half of the ninth inning." If the home side is ahead after the top of the ninth, the game simply ends — and the visiting pitchers have worked eight innings, however well. Under a nine-inning definition, that cannot be a no-hitter. A home team that pitches nine hitless innings and loses is in a different position, because its pitchers did complete nine.
Edge cases, settled in order
Most "does this count?" arguments resolve if you apply the definitions in a fixed order: length first, then hits, then baserunners, then runs. The scenarios below assume one pitcher unless stated otherwise.
| Scenario | No-hitter? | Perfect game? | Shutout? |
|---|---|---|---|
| A leadoff walk, then nine hitless innings in a 1-0 win | Yes | No | Yes |
| An error puts a batter on base; no hits and no runs over nine innings | Yes | No | Yes |
| A strikeout on a wild pitch lets the batter reach first | Still possible | No | Still possible |
| Rain ends a hitless, scoreless game after six innings | No | No | Yes |
| A road team allows no hits but trails after the top of the ninth | No | No | No |
| Nine hitless innings at 0-0, then a hit in the 10th | No | No | Only if he finishes without allowing a run |
| Two pitchers combine on nine hitless, scoreless innings with two walks | Yes | No | Team shutout only |
Three of those rows rest on a rule worth knowing:
- The wild-pitch strikeout. Rule 5.05(a)(2) lets a batter run when a third strike is not caught, as long as first base is open or there are two outs. Rule 9.15(a)(3) still scores the play as a strikeout, so no hit is charged — but a batter has reached base, which ends any perfect game.
- The error. An error is not a hit, so the no-hitter survives. The perfect game does not, which makes a perfect game partly a fielding achievement: the defence has to be flawless as well as the pitcher.
- The rain delay. The shutout survives because its definition has no minimum length; the no-hitter does not, because its definition does.
The extra-innings runner
Regular-season extra innings now begin with a runner placed on second base (Rule 7.01(b)(2) in the 2026 edition), although Rule 7.02(g) says that does not apply in any postseason round. Elias addressed exactly this in 2020: the placed runner "is not a batter to reach safely," so a perfect game survives him.
Which is better, and how rare each one is
By definition the perfect game is the greater feat: it requires everything a no-hitter does and then forbids every other way of reaching base. It is also rare. Baseball-Reference's list of no-hitters and perfect games flags 24 perfect games as of 2 October 2026 — the first two thrown five days apart in June 1880, the most recent in June 2023, which MLB.com called the 24th "in AL/NL history." Both counts include one postseason game, from the 1956 World Series, and both follow the 1991 standard, so no hitless game shorter than nine innings is on the list. That total will change the next time someone throws one, so quote it with a source and a date.
A no-hitter with walks is not a lesser pitching performance in every sense — it may include more strikeouts, or come against a stronger lineup — but on the definitions alone, perfect sits above it.
Reading these feats in a simulated season
If you play a starter or a closer in Baseball Career Sim 2026, your season record tracks strikeouts, ERA, WHIP, wins and saves, and every league, team and player in that game is fictional. A hitless start in a simulated season is one sampled outcome. On its own it says little about how well the pitcher was built or used, for the same reason one great outing says little in real baseball: one game is a tiny sample. Rate statistics over several seasons tell you more, and what ERA measures and misses explains why a pitcher's run totals depend on his fielders too. The different demands on starters and relievers are covered in baseball pitching roles explained, and choosing and developing a pitcher is part of the Baseball Career Sim 2026 guide.
On the front-office side, the baseball draft simulator guide covers reading pitchers' ERA, WHIP and WAR on a draft card before you commit a pick. Nothing in this article describes how any simulation, ours included, labels hitless games; the definitions above are MLB's record-keeping conventions. Related rules explainers are collected on our baseball hub, and every title in this space is listed under sports career and GM games.
Our career sims are set in fictional leagues. Our draft and GM games, such as 162-0 Baseball Draft & GM Team, build their player pools from real players' careers, with ratings that are the games' own estimates. None of them is affiliated with or endorsed by any league, team, players' association or athlete. MLB and MLB.com are trademarks of their respective owners and are named here only to identify the definitions and rules cited.
Good to know
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between a perfect game and a no-hitter?
Does a rain-shortened no-hitter count?
Can a pitcher throw a no-hitter and still lose?
Is a perfect game also a shutout?
How many perfect games have there been in MLB history?
Sources
- Un-permanent records fill baseball history (opens in a new tab)National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum — accessed
- Seven-inning doubleheaders no-hitter rules (opens in a new tab)MLB.com — accessed
- Shutout (SHO) | Glossary (opens in a new tab)MLB.com — accessed
- Official Baseball Rules, 2026 Edition (opens in a new tab)Office of the Commissioner of Baseball — accessed
- No-Hitters and Perfect Games (opens in a new tab)Baseball-Reference.com — accessed
- Domingo Germán's perfect game | MLB Stories (opens in a new tab)MLB.com — accessed
League, team and athlete names appear here only to identify the rules, records and history being discussed. Reign Creative LLC's sports games are not affiliated with, endorsed by or licensed by any league, team, players' association or athlete, and all names and marks belong to their owners.
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