After witnessing the 6th no-hitter, the question must be asked, if the MLB has an offense problem in their 2021 season. Throughout the early part of the 2021 season, the hitting stats have been way down, while the pitching stats have been at an all time high. There has been 6 no-hitters to date this season. This has been the first time in MLB history before the month of June. They were from Joe Musgrove (Padres) on April 9th, Carlos Rodon (White Sox) on April 14th, John Means (Orioles) on May 5th, Wade Miley (Reds) on May 7th, Spencer Turnbull (Tigers) on May 18th, and Corey Kluber (Yankees) on May 19th. As you can see the names on that list isn’t impressive. The only one is Corey Kluber with his time with the Indians and flashes from Carlos Rodon. You can also argue John Means but I believe that it is too early in his career to call him a “stud”, but the other 3 no hitters, especially Wade Miley & Spencer Turnbull are from nobody’s. The modern record for most no-hitters is 7 and the all-time record is 8 in a season. At this rate, I see this record being broken by the end of June, if the MLB doesn’t get their act together.
This is the first time in MLB history that three teams have been no-hit twice in a season: the Rangers, the Tigers, and Cleveland. No team in MLB history has been no-hit three times, but at the rate of no-hitters going, I think this is most likely going to happen this season. The batting average this year is .240 (if you count when pitchers bat it is at .236). I know it is early but hitting numbers are way down this year. If you exclude the 60 game “Covid” season last year, batting average is down 18 points in 2019, 14 points in 2018, and 21 points in 2017. Currently the worst teams in batting average this year are the Mariners (.198), the Brewers (.213), and Indians (.213). The MLB also have admitted that there were some manufacturing variances that caused baseballs to fly out of stadiums in 2019 and 2020 (“juiced balls”), so they came out with a new baseball to hopefully negate these effects for the 2021 season. However, maybe the MLB went a little too far in the other direction. Balls used in 2019 were averaging 1.39 home runs per game and 1.28 home runs per game for each team. Those are the two highest marks in baseball history. Currently the number sits at 1.14 home runs per game. Fly ball rate is at 35.4% this season. It is a shade under the 35.7 % in both 2019 and 2020. Home run to fly ball rate is 13.3% this season, 15.3 in 2019, and 14.7 in 2020. The new baseballs aren't getting out at the rate they had been in the past.
Pitchers having better “stuff” and velocity, analytics in the field with all of the different shifts, and the “homerun-or-strikeout” philosophy that a lot of players currently using, and the “juiced ball theory”, all account for the MLB’s offensive numbers being down all across the board. I know that the 2021 season is relatively young and the coldest months are behind them and won’t be miserable in the ice-cold, which means that the players will get “hotter” in the upcoming months. In the meantime, the owners of the MLB will have to do something about their offense product before it is too late and teams are getting shutout or no-hit at a constant rate, and casual viewers that only watch the game for the run production will be turned off all together.