August 17, 1992: Kevin Gross dazzles Dodgers fans by no-hitting Giants

Kevin Gross did not receive a warm welcome after signing with the Los Angeles Dodgers following the 1990 season. Within days, fans wrote to the Los Angeles Times and aired their displeasure; one dubbed the signing of the veteran right-hander “a Gross mistake.”1 After the Dodgers fell five games short of a playoff spot in ’90, fans had hoped to see the franchise make a big splash in free agency, so they were understandably unmoved by the addition of a pitcher with an 80-90 career record and a 4.02 ERA. (In 1990 with the Montreal Expos, Gross had an underwhelming 9-12 record with a 4.57 ERA.)

Gross did not help his own cause by posting a dismal 13.50 ERA while losing his first three starts of 1991.2 By the end of May, the Dodgers had demoted him to the bullpen, and he finished the season 10-11 with a 3.58 ERA. When fans booed him during a spot start on September 19, he angrily gestured in response. Going into the 1992 season, Times columnist Mike Penner asked if Gross could “truly be considered pennant-building material.”3

“I think I put a lot of pressure on myself being in Los Angeles with a lot of good guys,” Gross said during spring training in 1992 while self-assessing his first season on the West Coast. “I choked at the beginning, but the guys in the bullpen when I went down there were all for me and kind of kept me straight.”4

Gross hoped the new campaign would play out differently, but he experienced a nearly identical story at the start of 1992. He lost three of his first four starts, and the Dodgers again sent him to the bullpen. Unlike in 1991, he returned to a regular spot in the rotation. He fired a shutout in his first start back, but suffered more losses than wins as the summer grew hotter. By the time he took the hill against the San Francisco Giants on August 17, he had not won in over a month and stood at 5-12 overall, though he boasted a respectable 3.59 ERA.5 The Dodgers carried the National League’s worst record (49-68) into the final game of the rivalry series.

But on that Monday night, 25,561 fans6 at Dodger Stadium witnessed history: For the eighth time since the franchise relocated to California in 1958, a Dodgers pitcher threw a no-hitter.7

“It makes up for a not-so-good year for the Dodgers and myself,” Gross said after throwing 71 of his 99 pitches for strikes in the major leagues’ only no-hitter of the season. “It brought tears to my eyes, no doubt about it.”8

Gross opened the night by inducing three routine groundouts on seven pitches in the first inning but lost his command a bit in the second, issuing a pair of walks before Kirt Manwaring grounded into a double play to end the inning. After Gross recorded two strikeouts as part of a one-two-three third inning, the Giants finally hit a ball out of the infield when Willie McGee led off the fourth with a fly out.

But Gross continued cruising. He retired 19 straight batters from Manwaring’s double play to the end of the eighth inning. The game’s top defensive highlight saw rookie shortstop José Offerman

make a leaping stab of Robby Thompson’s sharp liner leading off the eighth. Offerman was arguably the most unlikely defensive hero on the field after racking up a major-league-worst 32 errors in his first 113 games, but his catch seemed to seal the Giants’ fate.

“I hit that ball good,” Thompson said. “I thought it was a hit. It seemed to be rising. He just made a great play. He told me he couldn’t believe he caught it.”9

As Gross recalled 30 years after the game: “When (Offerman) came into the dugout, he said, ‘You’re going to get this.’ I said, ‘Whatever. Let’s just see what happens.’ Everyone else in the dugout was quiet and didn’t want to say anything. I was thinking, ‘Who cares? If it happens, it happens.’”10

That Gross was due up to lead off the bottom of the eighth inning could have contributed to his indifference. He poked a single to center in support of his own cause, and he spent the entire inning on the basepaths, eventually making it to third before Mitch Webster flied out with the bases loaded in a failed rally.

With the victory in sight, Giants manager Roger Craig pulled out all the stops for the ninth. He pinch-hit Mark Leonard for light-hitting Mike Benjamin – who had one hit in his past 11 at-bats – bringing Leonard back into the fold for the first time since he received six stitches to close a gash on his left thigh after colliding with Mike Felder in the outfield three days earlier.

Gross’s fourth pitch of the ninth hit Leonard on the left knee, and pitcher Bill Swift, a pinch-runner, nearly got to first base before Leonard did. But after another pinch-hitter, Greg Litton, hit into a fielder’s choice and Felder flied out to left-center, Gross sat within one tough out of becoming the sixth Dodgers starter to throw a no-hitter at Dodger Stadium – the most recent being Fernando Valenzuela’s outing on June 29, 1990.

“Willie McGee was the final hitter of the game,” Gross recalled of the scrappy switch-hitter who also hit in the final inning of Valenzuela’s no-hitter while with the Cardinals. “He’s such a free swinger. He can hit any pitch from his toes to over his head.”11

McGee swung through Gross’s first offering – taking a cut at the first pitch of his third straight at-bat. As an energized crowd howled, Gross displayed obvious nervousness as he and catcher Mike Scioscia agreed on the one-strike pitch.

“We are a minute away from 10 o’clock,” legendary Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully announced over the airwaves before the final pitch of the night, “and Gross could be a minute away from a no-hitter.”12

McGee lifted a weak fly to left, and Webster had to charge in only a few steps to track it down and preserve history. An emotional Gross broke down in tears on the mound as his teammates surrounded him. He directed a salute to his family on his way off the field – a contingent that included his mother, who was there when Gross threw a no-hitter in Little League in nearby Downey, California. His wife, Tamara, did not attend, instead celebrating her 27th birthday.13

Before the outing – the 13th time a pitcher had held the Giants hitless14 – the fewest number of hits Gross had allowed in a game was three. He had done it three times, including when he struck out a career-high 13 batters as he returned to the rotation earlier in the season, on May 12. One start before facing the Giants, he pitched 4⅓ no-hit innings against the Reds.

“I told my coaches before the game I’ve never understood why this guy didn’t win more ballgames,” Giants manager Craig said. “He’s a big, strong guy, and he’s got outstanding stuff. His fastball’s not what you’d call 93, 94, 95 (MPH), but it moves so good.”15

In support of Gross, rookie Eric Karros led off the second with a home run to left-center against Giants starter Francisco Oliveras. It was the Dodgers’ first homer since the second inning four days earlier, and the first since August 4 for Karros, the eventual NL Rookie of the Year.16 In the fourth, Brett Butler doubled and scored on Henry Rodríguez’s single, and those two runs helped the Dodgers avoid getting swept by the Giants in a four-game home series for the first time since 1923.17

San Francisco had squeaked out three straight one-run victories despite collecting only 13 total hits. For the series, the Giants collectively hit .109 with one extra-base hit and 29 strikeouts.

Perhaps inspired by Gross’s outing, rookie Pedro Astacio fired a six-hit shutout the next night to outduel David Cone and the Mets.18 Orel Hershiser pitched eight shutout innings the following night, giving the Dodgers 27 straight shutout innings.

The no-hitter remained the crowning jewel of Gross’s career. He spent 15 seasons in the major leagues and compiled a 142-158 record with a 4.11 ERA. Gross pitched for the Dodgers from 1991 to ’94, and he was arguably at his best in Southern California, posting a 40-44 record and a 3.63 ERA.19

“It’s really strange how much you appreciate something like that later in life,” Gross said in 2022. “Over the years, I get reminded of the no-hitter by lots of people, whether friends and family or fans. I went to the Home Run Derby this year at Dodger Stadium, and fans were congratulating me on the no-hitter. Some still have their ticket from the game or a card. It’s really cool to have an achievement like that in a career like mine.”20

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted the Baseball-Reference.com, Stathead.com, and Retrosheet.org websites for pertinent material and the box scores. He also used information from The Sporting News and numerous California newspapers.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/LAN/LAN199208170.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1992/B08170LAN1992.htm

Notes

1 “Readers Have a Name For It: Mike Downey,” Los Angeles Times, December 8, 1990: C3.

2 Gross had an overall ERA of 12.19 by that time after pitching a scoreless inning in relief the day after his first start, which saw him allow five earned runs over 1⅓ innings.

3 Mike Penner, “On a Claire Day, You Can See All the Way Down to Anaheim,” Los Angeles Times, January 15, 1992: C1.

4 Bill Boeding, “Gross Wants Starter’s Role,” Vero Beach (Florida) Press Journal, February 24, 1992: B1.

5 In Gross’s 21 starts, the Dodgers scored an average of 3.38 runs, contributing to his poor won-lost record. In three of his losses, the offense failed to score, and in three others, the Dodgers scratched across a single run.

6 This attendance was the ballpark’s third smallest of the season to that point. By season’s end it was the 17th smallest.

7 Among those eight no-hitters, six were thrown at Dodger Stadium. Additional no-hitters at Dodger Stadium included Los Angeles Angels pitcher Bo Belinsky’s 1962 no-hitter against the Baltimore Orioles and Montreal pitcher Dennis Martínez’s perfect game in 1991.

8 Bill Plaschke, “Gross Chases Dodger Blues Away,” Los Angeles Times, August 18, 1992: C1.

9 Nick Peters, “How Gross: Giants Are No-Hit,” Sacramento Bee, April 18, 1992: E1.

10 Mark Langill, “30 Years Later: Gross Still Savors No-No,” Dodgers Insider, August 17, 2022. Retrieved April 15, 2023 (https://dodgers.mlblogs.com/30-years-later-gross-savors-no-no-ea414d7567ac).

11 Langill.

12 MLB, “SF@LAD: Kevin Gross No-Hits the Giants,” YouTube, August 9, 2013, Retrieved April 22, 2023 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQqDRnJeKVY).

13 Four days later, Bob Ojeda was scheduled to start on his wife’s 29th birthday, and Gross jokingly suggested he needed to keep pace and throw a no-hitter for her. “I can’t believe he was dropping that stuff on me,” Ojeda said. “It isn’t like he bought his wife a watch on her birthday, and so now I can buy the same watch. I’ve got no chance of pitching a no-hitter. Let’s be serious.” Ojeda allowed six hits over five innings against the Cubs. “Cost-Cutting Measures Considered,” Los Angeles Times, August 19, 1992: C5.

14 The game marked the sixth time the Dodgers had no-hit the Giants. The most recent previous occurrence came from Jerry Reuss on June 27, 1980.

15 Associated Press, “Gross Nets a No-Hitter for Dodgers,” Thousand Oaks (California) News Chronicle, August 18, 1992: D-1.

16 Karros famously kicked off a streak of five straight NL Rookies of the Year for the Dodgers, with Mike Piazza, Raul Mondesi, Hideo Nomo, and Todd Hollandsworth following from 1993 to ’96.

17 The 1985 Philadelphia Phillies were the last previous team to sweep a four-game series in Dodger Stadium. Gross, then in his third big-league season, won one of the games for the Phillies.

18 Astacio became the 21st major-league pitcher to throw two shutouts in his first four appearances. The last pitcher to do so was Steve Rogers in 1973.

19 Gross earned an All-Star selection with the Philadelphia Phillies in 1988.

20 Langill, “30 Years Later: Gross Still Savors No-No.”