Baseball's No-Hitter: Just How Hard Is It?

According to Baseball Reference, there have been a total of 21,363 different pitchers who have appeared in at least one Major League Baseball (MLB) game as of the end of the 2021 season.

According to the same source, there have been 266 different pitchers who have thrown a no-hitter in MLB history.

That means about 99% of MLB pitchers ALL-TIME have never thrown a no-hitter! (and only 1.25% have).

And amazingly enough, 22 pitchers have thrown multiple no-hitters! Or 0.10% of all pitchers!

And when you wrap your mind around that, the fact that Nolan Ryan threw 7 no-hitters feels like one of those baseball records that will never be broken!

Here's the list of MLB pitchers who have thrown more than one no-hitter in descending order of the total number of no-hitters they've thrown:

1. Nolan Ryan - 7 no-hitters (1973, 1974, 1975, 1981, 1990, 1991, 1991)
2. Sandy Koufax - 4 no-hitters (1962, 1963, 1964, 1965)
3. Max Scherzer - 3 no-hitters (2015, 2018, 2019)
4. Larry Corcoran - 3 no-hitters (1880, 1882, 1884)
5. Cy Young - 3 no-hitters (1897, 1904, 1908)
6. Bob Feller - 3 no-hitters (1940, 1946, 1951)
7. Larry Benton - 3 no-hitters (1915, 1917, 1919)
8. Bobo Newsom - 2 no-hitters (1940, 1941)
9. Allie Reynolds - 2 no-hitters (1951, 1952)
10. Virgil Trucks - 2 no-hitters (1952)
11. Jim Maloney - 2 no-hitters (1965)
12. Don Wilson - 2 no-hitters (1967, 1969)
13. Bob Gibson - 2 no-hitters (1971)
14. Bill Stoneman - 2 no-hitters (1969)
15. Ken Holtzman - 2 no-hitters (1969, 1971)
16. Steve Busby - 2 no-hitters (1973, 1974)
17. Dick Bosman - 2 no-hitters (1974)
18. Randy Johnson - 2 no-hitters (1990, 2004)
19. Hideo Nomo - 2 no-hitters (1996, 2001)
20. Mark Buehrle - 2 no-hitters (2007, 2009)
21. Homer Bailey - 2 no-hitters (2012, 2013)
22. Jake Arrieta - 2 no-hitters (2015, 2016)