The pinch-hitter who broke a perfect game in a 13–0 loss

On August 5, 1932, Detroit right-hander Tommy Bridges retired the first 26 Washington Senators batters he faced. The Tigers were already ahead 13–0. Then Washington sent up a pinch-hitter, and the perfect game vanished on a bloop single. 12

A perfect game is not merely a shutout and not merely a no-hitter. The pitcher must face 27 batters and send every one of them back without a hit, walk, hit-by-pitch, or defensive error putting a runner on base. 2

Bridges had done exactly that for eight and two-thirds innings against Washington. He had struck out seven, and Detroit had built a thirteen-run cushion. The game was essentially decided; Bridges' private piece of history was not. 2

That is the joke hidden in the box score. A pitcher can be cruising through a lopsided win while every pitch still carries a second, much rarer consequence. The 13–0 lead removed the suspense from the result and left only the perfect game to lose.

Washington's manager was Walter Johnson, the legendary former pitcher who was by then running the Senators. With two outs in the ninth and his team down 13–0, Johnson sent Dave Harris to the plate as a pinch-hitter. 2

Harris did not need to start a rally. He needed one baserunner to turn a perfect game into something else. His bloop single reached safely, becoming the 27th Washington batter and ending both Bridges' perfect-game bid and his no-hitter. 1

The hit changed no practical outcome. Harris did not score. Washington still lost 13–0. But the distinction between 27 up, 27 down and 26 up, one hit, is the entire distance between an official perfect game and a one-hit shutout.

Bridges finished with the win and a one-hit shutout. The only blemish came from a batter who entered the game late, with the Senators already buried and the Tigers needing three outs to turn an excellent afternoon into a line for the record book. 12

That makes August 5's oddity less about a dramatic finish than about baseball's unforgiving arithmetic. The Senators' day was already a 13–0 defeat; Harris' single could not rescue the team. It could, however, erase the one achievement that would have made the game immortal.

The clean trivia version is almost absurdly compact: Tommy Bridges retired 26 straight, Dave Harris pinch-hit a single, and Detroit won 13–0. The blowout survived intact. The perfect game did not.