A rare achievement treasured by pitchers, the immaculate inning has become much more frequent in recent seasons.
Perhaps one of the coolest characteristics of baseball is that there are seemingly an infinite amount of ways to carve out a niche and succeed in a player’s own way – with the approach to pitching serving as a pertinent example.
While pitchers of today have gone even deeper in specializing their craft, mastering upwards of four-to-five pitches, pitching styles are typically defined on a power-to-control spectrum – with some pitchers placing a heavier emphasis on fastball velocity while others make their name with a filthy offspeed pitch instead.
The differences expand from there – with both power and control pitchers further differing on whether they predominantly pitch to contact or aim to induce swings and misses. For pitchers who prioritize the latter, one single-game accomplishment stands out as a lofty goal.
The best strikeout pitchers can prove the extent of their dominance by tossing an immaculate inning, where all three batters of an inning are retired on three-pitch strikeouts. The final result is a nine-pitch, three-strikeout inning that has only occurred 117 times in MLB history, with 109 different pitchers accomplishing the feat.
There have been five different pitchers to accomplish the feat more than once – Sandy Koufax, Nolan Ryan, Chris Sale, Max Scherzer and Kevin Gausman. Of those, Koufax, Sale and Scherzer have pitched an immaculate inning on three different occasions.
Though the immaculate inning remains a good deal more rare than the no-hitter or hitting for the cycle, the frequency of immaculate innings has greatly skyrocketed in recent years as strikeouts across the game have increased at a similarly rapid rate.
After just 29 immaculate innings between 1990 to 2009, there have been twice as many that have occurred since the start of the 2010 season – with 37 immaculate innings in the 2010’s and 21 immaculate innings thus far in the 2020’s.
While it seems the achievement has lost a little bit of rarity in recent years, the Texas Rangers and Minnesota Twins remain the only two franchises to have never had a pitcher throw an immaculate inning, each outlasting four expansion franchises from the 1990’s.
After the 2023 and 2024 seasons saw two immaculate innings thrown apiece, four different pitchers recorded the achievement during the 2025 – two of which were thrown by starters and the other two thrown by late-inning relievers.
Below is a look at the last player from each MLB team to throw an immaculate inning, along with the date, opponent and inning for each instance.
- San Diego Padres – September 3, 2025 – Mason Miller vs. Baltimore Orioles, 8th inning
- Chicago Cubs – August 6, 2025 – Andrew Kittredge vs. Cincinnati Reds, 7th inning
- Baltimore Orioles – July 8, 2025 – Brandon Young vs. New York Mets, 5th inning
- Miami Marlins – May 18, 2025 – Cal Quantrill vs. Tampa Bay Rays, 4th inning
- Tampa Bay Rays – September 18, 2024 – Ryan Pepiot vs. Boston Red Sox, 5th inning
- Chicago White Sox – July 10, 2024 – Michael Kopech vs. Minnesota Twins, 9th inning
- Pittsburgh Pirates – May 24, 2023 – Johan Oviedo vs. Texas Rangers, 4th inning
- Cleveland Guardians – September 27, 2022 – Enyel De Los Santos vs. Tampa Bay Rays, 7th inning
- St. Louis Cardinals – September 16, 2022 – Ryan Helsley vs. Cincinnati Reds, 9th inning
- Los Angeles Angels – July 31, 2022 – Reid Detmers vs. Texas Rangers, 2nd inning
- Houston Astros – June 15, 2022 – Phil Maton vs. Texas Rangers, 7th inning (Astros starter Luis García also threw immaculate inning in 2nd inning of same game)
- New York Yankees – April 17, 2022 – Nestor Cortes Jr. vs. Baltimore Orioles, 4th inning
- Los Angeles Dodgers – September 12, 2021 – Max Scherzer vs. San Diego Padres, 2nd inning (Scherzer’s third immaculate inning)
- Boston Red Sox – August 26, 2021 – Chris Sale vs. Minnesota Twins, 3rd inning (Sale’s third immaculate inning)
- Washington Nationals – May 5, 2021 – Kyle Finnegan vs. Atlanta Braves, 6th inning
- Atlanta Braves – September 11, 2019 – Chris Martin vs. Philadelphia Phillies, 7th inning
- Cincinnati Reds – August 18, 2019 – Kevin Gausman vs. St. Louis Cardinals, 9th inning (Gausman’s second immaculate inning)
- Toronto Blue Jays – April 14, 2019 – Thomas Pannone vs. Tampa Bay Rays, 5th inning
- Milwaukee Brewers – March 30, 2019 – Josh Hader vs. St. Louis Cardinals, 9th inning
- Colorado Rockies – August 8, 2018 – Germán Márquez vs. Pittsburgh Pirates, 4th inning
- San Francisco Giants – May 17, 2015 – Santiago Casilla vs. Cincinnati Reds, 9th inning
- Philadelphia Phillies – May 17, 2014 – Cole Hamels vs. Cincinnati Reds, 3rd inning
- Arizona Diamondbacks – October 1, 2012 – Wade Miley vs. Colorado Rockies, 3rd inning
- Seattle Mariners – June 17, 2008 – Félix Hernández vs. Florida Marlins, 4th inning
- Athletics – June 8, 2008 – Rich Harden vs. Los Angeles Angels, 1st inning
- St. Louis Cardinals – April 13, 2002 – Jason Isringhausen vs. Houston Astros, 9th inning
- Kansas City Royals – August 6, 1994 – Stan Belinda vs. Seattle Mariners, 9th inning
- New York Mets – August 30, 1991 – David Cone vs. Cincinnati Reds, 5th inning

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