If you have been an avid fan of MLB this season, you have noticed a handful of changes to it. First, and most noticeably, was the insurgence of advanced analytical statistics that have been welcomed with open arms by the daily fantasy baseball research community. The next thing goes right in line with the sabermetrics takeover and it is the sharp rise in popularity with a peculiar type of statistic/phenomena called an immaculate inning. You must-have heard of it but not necessarily know exactly what it is.
By definition, an immaculate inning is an inning where a pitcher throws a total of nine pitches and faces the minimum of three batters. All nine pitches are strikes and the conclusion of each at-bat is a strikeout, either looking and/or swinging. The reason it is called an immaculate inning because it is the literal definition of perfection for a pitcher by throwing the minimum amount of pitches but still getting the maximum upside of results back.
For any daily fantasy baseball player, one could only dream of their pitcher having such an inning because of the profound impact it will have on their outing. Something that requires this amount of skill will do absolute wonders for a pitcher’s confidence and will give the highest upside for fantasy points and longevity of their start. For an opposing team to go through something like this, strikes a great deal of fear in them and shifts the momentum of a game in an instance.
In baseball history, which spans over one hundred years, this has been quite the rare feat. In total, the American League has seen thirty four and the National League has accomplished a total of fifty five. So if you roughly average those numbers over the entire history of the game, there is about an average of one immaculate inning a year. But in the 2017-2018 season, we have seen much more than just one. As of right now, we have seen a total of eight already. With a majority of them (five) being thrown in the American League and two different teams have had the feat against them on two separate occasions (Tigers & Brewers). There is nothing better for a team than an immaculate inning and we have seen them at an astounding rate this season. Just goes to show how much the game has been changing.
