Perfect games (Baseball)

In baseball, a perfect game is a game in which one or more pitchers complete a minimum of nine innings with no batter from the opposing team reaching base safely. To achieve a perfect game, a team must not allow any opposing player to reach base by any means: no hits, walks, hit batsmen, catcher's interference, fielder's obstruction, and no fielding error, or uncaught third strike that allows a batter to reach base. A perfect game, by definition, is also a no-hitter, and is guaranteed to result in a win and a shutout if the game does not go into extra innings. In leagues that use a WBSC tiebreaker (including MLB since 2020), runners are placed on second base, and in some leagues, also on first base at the start of each half-inning during extra innings; this automatic runner would not cause a perfect game to be lost. Therefore, if the runner advances and scores without any batters reaching base (by means of stolen base, sacrifice, fielder's choice, etc.), and this turns out to be the winning run, then the losing team will still be credited with a perfect game, despite losing the game. A fielding error that does not allow a batter to reach base, such as a misplayed foul ball, does not spoil a perfect game. Games that last fewer than nine innings, regardless of cause, in which a team has no baserunners do not qualify as perfect games. Games in which a team reaches first base only in extra innings also do not qualify as perfect games. The first known use of the term perfect game was in 1908; its definition was formalized in 1991. In Major League Baseball (MLB), it has been achieved 24 times – 22 times since the modern era began in 1901, most recently by Domingo Germán of the New York Yankees on June 28, 2023, against the Oakland Athletics. Although it is theoretically possible for two or more pitchers to pitch a combined perfect game in the MLB (similar to combined no-hitters, which have occurred 22 times in MLB history), every MLB perfect game has been thrown by a single pitcher. A combined perfect game occurred in Game 5 of the 2007 Japan Series of Nippon Professional Baseball.