Shutout

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In team sports, a shutout (sometimes a clean sheet in soccer) refers to a game in which one team wins without allowing the opposing team to score. While always theoretically possible, in some sports, such as basketball, they are practically impossible.

They are seen as a result of effective defensive play even though a weak opposing offense may be as much to blame. Some sports credit individual players, particularly goalkeepers, with shutouts and keep track of them as statistics; others do not.

Baseball

If the starting pitcher can pitch the entire game without giving up a run he earns a complete game shutout. The currect record holder for most career shutouts is Walter Johnson with 110; the current active leader is Roger Clemens with 48 (tied with Kid Nichols for 25th all-time).

Though less than half of Johnson's record, Clemens' total is not likely to be reached by anyone else for a long time if at all as even star pitchers rarely earn more than 1 or 2 shutouts per season today with the heavy emphasis on pitch counts and relief pitching. This causes pitchers to frequently be taken out of the game in the 7th or 8th inning even though the opposing team hasn't scored a run. For a pitcher to get a complete game shutout today, it usually means either he threw an unusually low number of pitches, or a large amount of runs were scored by the pitchers own team (allowing them to give the pitcher a "chance" to complete the game on his own), or the team has a need that day to keep an unusually overworked bullpen rested if possible.

The term can also be used, however, to describe periods of time longer or shorter than one game. For instance, the efforts of a relief pitcher could be described as "three shutout innings" or a pitcher may have pitched a shutout over the "past 22 innings" (slightly over two full games.) See also: no-hitter and perfect game.

Ice hockey

In ice hockey, a shutout is given to a team whose goaltender successfully prevents the other team from scoring and plays the entire game. The current record holder for most regular seasor career shutouts is Terry Sawchuk with 103 (See All-Time Regular Season Shutouts).

Soccer

In soccer, a shutout is also known as a clean sheet. In association football in Great Britain, a "shutout" is attributed to a team (or their goalkeeper) when they play an entire match without conceding a goal.

The term first appeared in the 1930s and it derived from sports reporting in which the reporter would use separate pieces of paper to record different events of the game. If one team does not let in a goal, then that team's "details of goals conceded" column would appear blank, hence leaving a clean sheet. For example, two teams are playing (Team A and Team B), Team A win 4-0, they keep the clean sheet whereas Team B have conceded 4 goals, they do not.de:Shutout