Shutouts in baseball a winning home team will not bat (and the visiting team will not field) in the bottom of the ninth if they are winning, and the game will end with only 8½ innings played. In 1991, Major League Baseball changed the definition of a no-hitter to require that a pitcher throw at least nine full innings for the no-hitter to be official. With that change, there have been four no-hit performances ruled ineligible despite the pitcher pitching an eight-inning complete game in a losing effort: Silver King (June 21, 1890), Andy Hawkins (July 1, 1990), Matt Young (April 12, 1992),
Japan national baseball team Japan national baseball team The is the national team representing Japan in international baseball competitions. They have reached 2nd place in the Baseball World Cup in 1982, and have won the World Baseball Classic in 2006 and 2009. The team is currently ranked #2 in the world by the International Baseball Federation. The team participated in every Summer Olympic Games since the first demonstration tournament in 1984, through when it was discontinued following the 2008 Beijing Games. Until 2000, the team was made up exclusively of amateur players. Since the 2000 Summer Olympics, the team has been composed of players