Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Jared Jones was on course for baseball history on Wednesday night, retiring the first 18 Atlanta Braves batters he faced, but the Pirates removed him after six perfect innings. The decision, though clearly motivated by caution over his recent return from surgery, ultimately placed the 24-year-old in an unwanted footnote of Major League Baseball history rather than the celebrated one he was chasing.

Jones was pulled after 77 pitches, having not thrown more than 81 in any of his eight starts since returning on 20 May, roughly a year after ulnar collateral ligament internal brace surgery. With the Pirates offering no run support, the Braves went on to win 3-0 — helped by a 422-foot two-run homer from former Pirate Joey Bart and a late RBI single from Drake Baldwin — leaving Jones, according to Opta Stats, the first pitcher in the modern era (since 1920) to throw at least six perfect innings and not record a win. Jones said he understood the call given his pitch count and had never expected to go the full nine, while the article notes it was the second time in under a week that a returning pitcher was lifted from a perfect-game bid, after the Marlins' Eury Perez.