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First White Sox Immaculate Inning Since “Sloppy” Thurston in 1923!

This week, on July 10, 2024, White Sox  Michael Kopech tossed the second “Immaculate Inning” in team history. It was the first since it was last accomplished by White Sox Hollis “Sloppy” Thurston back on August 22, 1923, in the twelfth inning of a game against the Philadelphia A’s.  Kopech’s feat came in the ninth inning of a 3-1 White Sox victory over the Twins.

(In the featured photo above, we see Sloppy Thurston on the mound).

Of course, as soon as I heard the name “Sloppy” Thurston and read about something that hadn’t happened since 1923, my baseball history antenna and alarm bells went off immediately. As your friendly resident baseball historian, I knew I’d be remiss in my duties if I didn’t look deeper into this story.

(By the way, “Sloppy” Thurston got his unusual nickname because he was known to always dress so nattily. It was one of those crazy “reverse nicknames” that pop up so frequently in the early days of baseball). 

Before I go on about “immaculate innings,” you might be wondering what exactly it is. Even though I’ve been a baseball fan for more years than I care to mention, I had never heard of it myself until about three years ago.  That was the day in August 2021 when I read that Chris Sale had tied Sandy Koufax as the only pitchers in baseball history to have thrown three “immaculate innings.” “Hmm”…I said to myself, “whenever someone’s name is mentioned in the same sentence with Sandy Koufax, he must have done something extremely noteworthy.”

At the time I had to admit that, as long as I had been following this game, I had never heard of an “immaculate inning.” With many years of Catholic education under my belt, I was of course familiar with the term, “Immaculate Conception.” But an “immaculate inning”? What gives here? Was it something to do with the Pope? Did it have something to do with Holy Water? And the bigger question was, how could I have missed it after all these years?

Well, with a little research, “my prayers were answered,” so to speak. I found that an “immaculate inning” is one in which “a pitcher in his half-inning on the mound, throws only nine pitches, each of which is a strike and thus strikes out three consecutive batters.” Actually, I shouldn’t be too hard on myself as I discovered the term wasn’t used in baseball reporting until around the year 2000. 

Just How Rare Is An Immaculate Inning?

I also learned that in all of baseball history, only 104 different pitchers have accomplished the feat, for a total of 114 innings. In doing a little more research, I discovered that, very unofficially, approximately 238,500 major league games have been played. If we divide that into 114 immaculate innings, we come up with the number: .00047, which means that any one game has less than five one-hundredths of one percent of seeing an immaculate inning. (Feel free to correct my math!) Even if my calculations are off, it’s still rarer than hitting for a cycle, triple plays, no-hitters, and many other baseball rarities.

Only seven players in all of baseball history have thrown more than one: Lefty Grove (2), Nolan Ryan (2), Randy Johnson (2), Max Scherzer (2), Kevin Gausman (2), Sandy Koufax (3), and Chris Sale (3). Come to think of it, with only seven pitchers having thrown multiple immaculate innings for a total of 16 innings, it may be one of the rarest of all baseball feats.

A Couple More Tidbits About Immaculate Innings

• A record eight immaculate innings were thrown in 2017.
• Of the 104 pitchers, 79 are right-handed and 25 left-handed.
• Five pitchers – Roger Clemens, Bob Gibson, Randy Johnson, Pedro Martínez and Nolan Ryan – are also members of the 3,000 strikeout club.
• Six rookies have accomplished the feat, including Sloppy Thurston.

  

• Nolan Ryan and Kevin Gausman are the only pitchers to have thrown one in both the American League and National League.
• Danny Jackson is the only pitcher to throw one in the World Series.
• Twelve of the players who threw one have been elected to the Hall of Fame.
• The first one was thrown by Hall-of-Famer John Clarkson of the Boston Beaneaters on June 4, 1889, against the Philadelphia Quakers.
• Only one game in history has seen two immaculate innings in the same game: June 15, 2022, by Astros Phil Maton and Luis Garcia against the Rangers.

Michael Kopech was understandably very excited about his rare feat. As he said after the game:

“I was telling guys in there, I’m trying not to lie about it, I was thinking about it from Pitch Four,” Kopech said. “As soon as I realized there were no balls on the board, I wanted to finish that feat off. It feels good, but at the same time, I would have never thought about it again if I threw a ball in there at some point. Just glad to have a clean inning and get the win.”

Congratulations Michael…anytime you’re mentioned with Sloppy Thurston, you’ve done something pretty rare!

Gary Livacari 

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Statistics from “Immaculate Inning” Wikipedia page

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