WINNING A BASEBALL GAME WITHOUT GETTING A HIT OR A BASE ON BALLS. I posted here in March, 2017 about a rule change that baseball was planning to implement. (I called the proposed change “bizarre”.) If a game is tied after the ninth inning, each team would get to start the next inning with a runner on second base. A version of the rule was implemented in the minor leagues, and this article from the AP on the ESPN site tells about the kind of game result that baseball purists had worried about.
In a class A game on August 6, the Clearwater Threshers, the Phillies affiliate, beat the Tampa Tarpons, the Yankees affiliate, even though it had no hits or walks in the entire game. Clearwater started the first extra inning with a runner on second, per the rule. The runner went to third on an error and scored on a ground ball. Tampa didn’t score in its half inning, and Clearwater won 1-0.