Astros Set Record With Two Immaculate Innings Against Rangers

Against Garcia, the Rangers batters managed to foul off five of his nine pitches. Two of the batters swung and missed for strike three while one went down on a foul tip caught by Maldonado. Maton was slightly more dominant, with the batters fouling off only three pitches, with the outs recorded on a foul tip, a called strike and a swinging strike.

In a fun twist, Garcia briefly kept things going in the third inning by striking out Leody Taveras on three pitches. That gave him a remarkable four strikeouts on 12 pitches.

While still rare, the immaculate inning, like no-hitters and strikeouts in general, has become far more common thanks to the all-or-nothing approach of modern hitters and pitchers.

Between 1876 and 1921, there were only three recorded instances of an immaculate inning. In the 1920s there were five, with Grove’s being the last. There weren’t any in the 1930s or the 1940s and while the next few decades saw a handful each, things took a notable turn with 17 in the 1990s and 14 in the 2000s.

Pitchers, it seems, were just getting started. There were 37 immaculate innings in the 2010s and the 2020s have already had nine despite the pandemic reducing the 2020 regular season to 60 games from 162, and 2022 being in only its third month.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/15/sports/baseball/astros-rangers-immaculate-innings.html