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Welcome to Snyder's Soapbox! Here, I pontificate about matters related to Major League Baseball on a weekly basis. Some of the topics will be pressing matters, some might seem insignificant in the grand scheme of things, and most will be somewhere in between. The good thing about this website is that it's free, and you are allowed to click away. If you stay, you'll get smarter, though. That's a money-back guarantee. Let's get to it.

This past summer, a friend of mine presented the scenario in which we could end up in statistical quagmire. I'll go with it in my own words, but thanks go out to my boy Rodney for inspiring this Soapbox.

Let's say a pitcher someone allows zero baserunners through nine innings; 27 up, 27 down. We know that as a perfect game. But the score is 0-0 and heads to extra innings. Let's imagine that the team sends this pitcher back out for the 10th inning -- impossible to imagine in this day and age, I know, but just humor me, will you?

As we all know well by now, the regular-season extra-innings rules in Major League Baseball say that an automatic runner will start on second base in extras. This means that, despite our pitcher here having allowed nary a baserunner though nine innings, he now has to deal with a runner. The opposing team bunts the runner to third. Then a sacrifice fly plates the run. 

This pitcher has been the victim of awful support from his team today, for sure, so we'll stick with theme. The bunt wasn't very good, but the defense did a poor job in execution without making an error. The sac fly wasn't deep, but the outfielder made a poor throw home, again, without it being ruled an error. Our pitcher strikes out the next hitter. 

Then the team of this pitcher goes back out for the bottom of the 10th and fails to score. 

Our pitcher here faced 30 batters and got all of them out. And he took the loss while having allowed an unearned run. 

The question is ...

Was this a perfect game?

Remember, in the 2020 season, MLB ruled that in those seven-inning doubleheaders, any no-hitter thrown wouldn't officially be counted as a no-hitter, which obviously extended to perfect games. This means that MLB is well aware that arguments will occur over stuff like no-hitters or perfect games when weird rules get in the way. 

Rule 9 in the official MLB rulebook for 2025 covers all the statistics and how they should be figured and ruled. It is extensive, clocking in at 40 pages. It says nothing about ruling on perfect games. Same with the "definition of terms" section. Rule 7.01(C) says the following regarding the automatic runner on second base: 

For purposes of calculating earned runs under Rule 9.16, the runner who begins an inning on second base pursuant to this rule shall be deemed to be a runner who has reached second base because of a fielding error, but no error shall be charged to the opposing team or to any player. For purposes of Rule 9.02, the Official Scorer shall keep records of the number of times each batter and runner is placed at second base in accordance with this rule.

If the runner is ruled to have reached on error, it's not a perfect game, except the team isn't actually charged with an error. 

Basically, there's no rulebook guidance here, which leads me to believe that if this actually happened, the office of the commissioner would be forced to weigh in. One of my pet peeves is the league being reactive instead of proactive and here's another case. 

Of course, none of this matters until it happens, and then it'll really matter. Imagine recording the final out and not knowing if it counted as a perfect game or not.

Since there isn't a rule laid out for us, we can run with vibes. 

It's a perfect game. C'mon. The pitcher faced 30 hitters and got every single one of them out. 

Of course, I can easily see the rebuttal, right? The team lost. We know what the word "perfect" means. Here's a paradox for you, then: How could it be possible for a pitcher to throw a perfect game and also be saddled with a loss? Doesn't the "loss" next to his name make the game less-than-perfect? 

We can go in circles with this one. Discuss among yourselves.