Two near-misses, one theme: MLB’s next no-hitter is likely to come from a familiar kind of ace

No-hitters in Major League Baseball rarely arrive on raw dominance alone. They are shaped as much by timing, opponent quality, and a few breaks that fall your way as they are by a pitcher’s talent. That is part of why the recent run of performances that nearly went the distance has felt so meaningful, even when the final result was not a completed no-hitter. In a span of roughly a day, Jacob Misiorowski posted what CBS Sports described as one of the best games of the season, and Yoshinobu Yamamoto followed with another late, high-profile threat.

Misiorowski’s outing featured a one-hit shutout built on volume and control. CBS Sports reported that he needed 95 pitches to finish the game, recorded 15 strikeouts, and allowed only one hit. That combination matters because modern no-hitter chances tend to require both efficiency and the ability to keep missing bats late, not just early. A 95-pitch complete shutout also indicates that, at least for that start, his pitch plan held up through the ninth inning rather than breaking down at the cost of strikeouts or run prevention.

The next day, Yamamoto raised the stakes by taking a perfect game into the eighth inning and a no-hitter into the ninth. Perfect through eight and hitless into the ninth is the sort of platform that puts the league’s next no-hitter within striking distance, because it suggests the pitcher was still controlling at the deepest part of the outing. The late-inning phase is where no-hitters are most commonly lost, whether due to the first baserunner of the night, a defensive miscue, or a batter timing a mistake. When a pitcher reaches that late stage without surrendering anything, the odds swing noticeably in favor of history, even if they never become certainty.

What CBS Sports emphasized in its look ahead is that no-hitters are difficult to predict in a simple, talent-only way. The same ace can have a near-miss if an opponent’s lineup matches up unusually well, if a defense turns out of position, or if a bloop falls in. Even pitchers with elite command and velocity can face moments where contact quality changes, pitch timing becomes easier, or a single pitch with an elevated margin is punished. In that sense, the league is always “one start away,” but it is also always a matter of both preparation and fortune.

Still, the two recent performances offer a useful blueprint for what MLB will likely reward when the next no-hitter finally lands. First, both pitchers reached deep into games with the kind of strikeout-backed run prevention that keeps opponents from stringing together damage in the middle innings. Second, each scenario featured a high leverage stage late in the outing, when bullpen specialists or innings limits would normally interrupt the path to 27 consecutive outs. Third, the psychological momentum of being close, especially when the game remains in a manageable pitch count window, can help pitchers maintain the same approach rather than changing gears too late.

As summer progresses into the prime stretch of the schedule, teams will increasingly treat no-hit threats as bullpen management problems and lineup matchup problems at the same time. Managers do not have to avoid every runner, but they do have to account for what happens when an ace hits the sixth, seventh, and eighth innings without allowing baserunners. For hitters, the counter is patience and pitch selection early enough to disrupt a pitcher’s rhythm. For pitchers, it is the ability to convert strike-one and strike-two looks into outs even as hitters see the same arm multiple times.

The practical question now is not whether elite pitchers will continue to threaten. It is which one will put together the full finish when the late innings arrive. Misiorowski’s one-hit shutout shows how a near-miss can still be a season-defining start, while Yamamoto’s perfect-game-through-eight outline shows how quickly a night can shift from dominance to history. The next completed no-hitter will likely look like both: deep innings, tight execution, and enough breaks to keep the margin clean all the way to the end.