R.A. Dickey just pitched his second consecutive one-hitter, which is just the latest feat in what is rapidly becoming the season of the pitchers.  So far this season 9 guys other than Dickey have pitched a one-hittter (E.Santana, Cain, Verlander, Moore, Hammel, CJ Wilson, Vogelsong, Duffy, Felix Hernandez), which brings the total to 11 one-hitters so far this season as of June 19.  This season has also featured 3 no-hitters (Jered Weaver, Johan Santana, and Millwood et al.) and 2 perfect games (Phil Humber and Matt Cain).  So far, in total, there has been 16 games with one or fewer hits.  (Let me remind you that it’s June 19).  To compare, here is a list of complete seasons that had fewer than 16 low hit games: 2008 (15), 2007 (12), 2005 (10), 2004 (11), 2003 (10), 2002 (15), 2000 (11), 1999 (11), 1998 (10), 1996 (10), 1995 (13).  That’s 11 out of the last 17 seasons.  To re-iterate, in 7 of the last 11 completed seasons, their were fewer one hit or fewer games pitched during the entire season than have already been pitched so far in 2012.

Here is an updated graph for June 19th to include the latest one-hitters by Hammel and Dickey.

I’ve also created a graph looking at all games with fewer than 4 hits since 1918 (Note that this graph is on a log-scale).

Cheers.