The No-hitter: A series of unlikely events

The Internet is full of wonderful information. And as everybody knows, all of it is true. That's why I have almost no hesitation to bring you this factoid I found via "Ask.com":

The statistical chances of a pitcher throwing a no-hitter against a team full of hitters with a .250 average is 0.0004%.

That's based on the premise that a pitcher has a 75% chance of getting each batter out. That works out to a 42% chance of throwing a no-hit inning. Multiply .42 nine times, and you get about 0.0004%. I even checked the math on my own calculator.

It really gives me a new appreciation for Justin Verlander's feat on Tuesday, and explains why these things happen to a team once in a generation. But there's no explanation for why Virgil Trucks threw two no-hitters for the Tigers in 1952 -- he only had 5 wins all year!!!

This calculation doesn't work for perfect games, of course, because batting averages exclude a number of events, such as being hit by a pitch, walks, errors, sacrifice flies, etc.

I got this from a page that appears to be lecture notes from a course syllabus on probabilities, and it includes some interesting factiods on poker, too.