We have two weeks left to end the longest no-hitter drought since 2006

After years of declining offense, Major League teams are now scoring more runs per game (4.5) than they have since 2009 (4.6). The biggest cause of this surge has been a return of the home run: Teams are hitting home runs per game at a rate tied with 2000 (1.17) for the highest in Major League history. Runs are back! Power is back! But is the frequency of a certain feat of pitching greatness paying the price for the offensive boom?
You may recall that 2010 ushered in the recent low-scoring era in a season known at the time as the Year of the Pitcher. (Why we didn't come up with an original name rather than borrowing a name first ascribed to the 1968 season I don't know, but I digress.) Since 2010, pitching and run prevention have been dominant forces in the game and a coinciding trend has been the rise of the no-hitter. From 2010 to 2015, there were 31 no-hitters in baseball, including Roy Halladay's in the 2010 postseason -- or an average of just over five a year. In the six seasons prior to that, there were just nine no-hitters total -- barely more than one a year!
When 2016 began, it appeared as though the no-hitters would keep on rolling. On April 21, the Cubs' Jake Arrietathrew a no-hitter in a 16-0 win over the Cincinnati Reds. But then, without warning, the no-hitters simply stopped coming.

This recent trend was amplified over the past week, with Rich Hill being pulled after seven perfect innings on Saturday and Kyle Hendrickslosing a no-hit bid in the ninth inning on Monday. The close calls don't end there either: On Tuesday, Taijuan Walker took a no-hitter into the seventh inning. But this isn't horseshoes and all the close calls have gone for naught.
As it stands now, Jake Arrieta's no-no remains as the only no-hitter in the Majors this season, and if that streak continues, it will mark the first season since 2006 with just one no-hitter.
Not only that, but we are now 144 scheduled gamedays and nearly five months removed from the most recent no-hitter, which makes this the longest stretch without a no-no since 2006.
On Sept. 6, 2006, Aníbal Sánchez threw a no-hitter for the Marlins. It was the first in baseball since Randy Johnson's perfect game on May 18, 2004 -- more than a season and a half earlier. At 470 scheduled gamedays long, that was the longest no-hit drought in Major League history. For reference, the current drought would need to last until August 2018 to challenge that record!

Even though the record books remain a long way off, it's still been a long time since we've seen a no-no in baseball. How long? On the day of Arrieta's no-no, the heart of the Yankees order was Carlos Beltrán, Mark Teixeira and Alex Rodriguez, and current Braves shortstop Dansby Swanson was playing in Class A. In fact, it's been so long that catcher Erik Kratz has been with four different organizations (Astros, Angels, Pirates and Blue Jays) in that time.
For the fans who enjoy offense and a high run-scoring environment, it's great to see the home run rate spike and a corresponding increase in runs scored, but it appears there may be a tradeoff -- fewer no-hitters. It's looking increasingly as though we're returning to pre-Year of the Pitcher no-hitter rates. With that said, there has been a no-hitter on the final weekend of the season in each of the past four years -- Homer Bailey (9/28/12), Henderson Alvarez (9/29/13), Jordan Zimmermann (9/28/14), and Max Scherzer (10/3/15) -- so there's still hope that pitching greatness lies ahead in the final two weeks of the season.