On September 7, 2026, Thomas Pannone threw the first nine-inning perfect game by a single pitcher in the minor leagues since 2017. The 32-year-old lefty retired all 27 Durham Bulls batters on 93 pitches at Durham Bulls Athletic Park, and the Nashville Sounds — the Brewers‘ Triple-A affiliate — won 3-0. This isn’t a prospect making noise. It’s the peak of a career built over more than a decade in the low levels of professional baseball.
A perfect game no one had seen in nearly a decade
Perfect games are rare at any level. MLB has seen just 24 in its entire history — the most recent was Domingo Germán’s gem with the Yankees on June 28, 2023. In the minors, they’re a different kind of rare, but just as real. The last nine-inning perfect game thrown by a single pitcher in affiliated ball had been sitting untouched since 2017.
One important distinction is worth making: in July 2025, the Greensboro Grasshoppers (High-A, Pirates affiliate) threw two nine-inning perfect games in the same week — but both were combined efforts by three or four pitchers. What Pannone did is categorically different: one pitcher, nine complete innings, zero baserunners. That’s the qualifier that makes this historically unique since 2017.
Pannone at 32: a veteran who did what prospects couldn’t
Pannone isn’t a new name in the minor league system. The Cleveland Indians drafted him in the 9th round in 2013, he made his MLB debut on August 10, 2018, and joined the Brewers organization in December 2022. He’s spent most of the last few years in Nashville, logging innings rather than headlines.
The 2026 season hadn’t been remarkable before September 7. Pannone came into the start with a 4-1 record and a 4.09 ERA with the Sounds — solid rotation numbers, but nothing that hinted at what was coming. Ninety-three pitches later, none of that mattered.
The game ended 3-0 at Durham Bulls Athletic Park, with Pannone finishing the ninth inning without a single Bulls batter reaching base. Seventeen years after Cleveland picked him in the draft, the Rhode Island lefty wrote his name into the minor league record books.
Just how hard is this to do?
For context: only 24 pitchers in all of MLB history have thrown a perfect game. In the minors, the list isn’t long either — and the «one pitcher, nine full innings» requirement makes it even shorter. The fact that the last comparable performance dates back to 2017, nine years prior, says everything about how difficult it is to string together 27 consecutive outs without anyone reaching base.
The Nashville Sounds are wrapping up the International League’s regular season, and Pannone handed them the best individual performance of the campaign right when the schedule gets tight. A perfect game doesn’t change a roster or guarantee a big-league call-up, but it does go into the permanent record. And this one — 93 pitches, zero baserunners, 27 up, 27 down — is already there.
