Mike, OK, I didn't know his pitch count; AJ Hinch and I aren't BFFs. But I think that I can exclude a reasonable doubt that he was left in beyond his pitch count, rvrn if I don't know. Here are Jackson's pitch counts in his starts for Arizona last season, and I think you can draw some inference from these numbers:
94, 98, 109, 106, 55, 88, 103, 121, 114, 115, 102, 123, 109, 115, 107, 149, 88, 100, 110, 95, 103
Looks like his normal pitch count is 120, no? Furthermore, AJ Hinch only allowed his SP to go into the 9th twice before he was fired, and the other guy was at 93 pitches starting the 9th. And post-game interviews that I saw rule out the possibility that Hinch just forgot to take him out.
There is no reasonable doubt that Jackson was left in past where he would otherwise have been pulled for pitch count because he was throwing a no-hitter. Technical doubt, sure, you can have that. But no reasonable doubt.
Not that you care, but we agree that they shouldn't change the game. It would be a lot of work for a trivial bit of "realism" that would make gameplay slightly worse. But it would, in fact, make a handful of boxscores look more realistic if they changed the programming.