Pitchers who struck out three batters on nine pitches
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In Major League Baseball, 36 pitchers have thrown a nine-pitch, three-strikeout half-inning, also known as an immaculate inning, literally throwing nothing but strikes, a total of 39 times.
- The feat has been accomplished in every regulation inning: three times in the 1st, five times in the 2nd, six times in the 3rd, three times in the 4th, once in the 5th (Cone), once in the 6th (Johnson), four times in the 7th, seven times in the 8th, nine times in the 9th, and once in the 12th (Thurston).
- Three pitchers have accomplished the feat twice: Grove, Koufax, and Ryan. Of them, Grove is the only pitcher ever to have achieved the feat twice in the same season, and Ryan is the only pitcher ever to have achieved the feat in both the National and American Leagues, as well as being the only right-handed pitcher to accomplish the feat twice.
- Three of the pitchers who have accomplished the feat have done so in their rookie seasons: Eller, Thurston, and Ashby.
- Three of the pitchers who have accomplished the feat are members of the 3000 strikeout club: Johnson, Ryan, and Gibson.
- Koufax's first nine-pitch/three strikeout inning came in the first inning of his first no-hitter.
- Four of the pitchers who have accomplished the feat have also thrown perfect games: Koufax, Bunning, Cone, and Johnson; each threw his perfect game after having struck out the side on nine pitches. Martínez deserves honorable mention for having retired the first 27 batters in a June 3, 1995 game against the San Diego Padres that went into extra innings; he lost the perfect game to batter #28, Bip Roberts, in the tenth inning.
- Nine of the pitchers who have accomplished the feat have been elected to the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame: Clarkson, Waddell, Vance, Grove, Bunning, Koufax, Ryan, Gibson, and Sutter.
- Thurston is the only pitcher in Major League history to accomplish the feat in extra innings.
- Grove and Ryan are the only pitchers with 300 career wins to have accomplished the feat.
- The 24-year-and-345-day gap between Grove's half-inning and Hoeft's half-inning in the longest span without a pitcher achieving the feat; the one-day gap between Koufax's half-inning and Bruce's half-inning is the shortest span.
- 1928 was the first year in which the feat was accomplished twice (both times by Grove); 1964 was the first year in which two pitchers accomplished the feat (Koufax and Bruce); 1991 was the first year in which three pitchers accomplished the feat (Ashby, Cone, and Harnisch); 2002 was the first year in which four pitchers accomplished the feat (Isringhausen, Kim, Martínez and Lawrence)
- José Vizcaíno, Carlton Fisk, Jeff Reed and Greg Luzinski are the only men recorded to have been victims of the immaculate inning twice. '
- As of the end of the 2006 season, the feat has been accomplished twenty-nine times in the National League, and eleven times in the American league.
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