In a season shaping up as an all-or-nothing campaign, no-hitters are becoming part of the landscape. With three in the first five weeks this year, pitchers are halfway toward the combined output of the last two seasons and within striking distance – in baseball parlance – of the Modern Era mark of seven.

Under 1991 rules that revised the official definition of a no-hitter, there was an average of three per season, with a max of eight in 1884 and a modern-record seven in three different seasons, 1990, 1991, and 2012.

John Means of the Orioles pitched the latest, a 6-0 gem at Seattle May 5, joining Joe Musgrove (Padres) and Carlos Rodón (White Sox) as authors of no-hitters this year. That doesn’t even include the seven-inning hitless game authored by Madison Bumgarner (Diamondbacks), who got credit for a complete game and shutout but not a no-hitter because he didn’t pitch nine innings.

During the virus-shortened 60-game season of 2020, Lucas Giolito (White Sox) and Alec Mills (Cubs) had nine-inning no-hitters. There were four hitless games in 2019, the last full season, pitched by Justin Verlander (Astros), Mike Fiers (Athletics), and tandems of four Astros and two Angels.

The trend is obvious.

Hitters are flailing away, hoping send baseballs into orbit, but often failing to make contact. In April, there were 6,924 strikeouts but only 5,832 hits – the largest strikeouts-to-hits difference ever recorded in a single month, according to Jayson Stark of The Athletic. No wonder no-hitters are on the rise.

The composite first-month batting average in the big leagues was a paltry .232, worst for any month in baseball history, and the 7.63 hits per game average was also the worst ever recorded.

On the other hand, teams are averaging 1.14 home runs per game, nearly double the rate in 1968, supporting the theory rosters around the majors are populated by Dave Kingman copycats. He’s the former slugger whose memory conjures up the image of an all-or-nothing hitter. His mighty swings produced 442 home runs but also 1,816 strikeouts and a .236 lifetime average.

In addition to hitters swinging as hard as they can, power pitchers are proliferating throughout the majors. That combination is not only producing strikeouts in record numbers but also no-hitters.

If the pace continues, there will be 7,000 more strikeouts than hits this year – only the second time a season had 1,000 more Ks than base-hits. Last year, with a 60-game schedule, was the first.

The latest no-hitter, like the others this season, was a surprise. Means, a 28-year-old left-hander, had never pitched a complete game in a career that began with the 2018 Orioles and covered 43 previous starts.

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, no other pitcher has thrown a non-perfect no-hitter in which his opponent did not have a walk, error, or hit batsman. The only runner was Sam Haggerty, who got to first in the third after striking out on a wild pitch. Means threw 113 pitches, fanned 12, dropped his earned run average to 1.37, and increased his record to 4-0.

When White Sox southpaw Carlos Rodón, also 28, no-hit Cleveland, 8-0, at Chicago’s Guaranteed Rate Field April 14, he retired the first 25 batters before losing his perfect game on a hit batsman. It was the second complete game of his career.

Perhaps the least likely man to author a no-hitter was the first one to do it this season. Joe Musgrove, a lifelong fan of the San Diego Padres, no-hit the Texas Rangers, 3-0, in a game at Globe Life Field on April 9. It was his second start for the Padres, who had acquired the 28-year-old right-hander from Pittsburgh in an off-season trade.

The jury is still out on Bumgarner’s gem, which came in the second game of a double-header at Atlanta’s Truist Park. New rules enacted as experiments during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season mandated that both games of twinbills be reduced from the standard nine innings to seven.

That hurt Bumgarner, a 31-year-old lefty who had never held an opponent hitless in a complete game during his 13-year career.

The definition of a no-hitter had changed with the 1991 ruling from an official committee on statistical accuracy appointed by Major League Baseball. It defined a no-hitter as "a game in which a pitcher, or pitchers, gives up no hits while pitching at least nine innings. A pitcher may give up a run or runs so long as he pitches nine innings or more and does not give up a hit."

Before that edict, no-hitters of less than nine innings – such as those shortened by weather – were legitimate. But seven-inning games are now considered official so Bumgarner could still get credit – swelling the season’s total of no-hitters to four.

"I want to thank these shadows in Atlanta,” he said after the game. “They helped me out a good bit. And I want to thank [Commissioner] Rob Manfred for making those seven-inning games."

With five months left in the season, more no-hitters – and more debates on shortened ones – are as probable as tomorrow’s pitchers.