September 4, 2006: Home run, near no-hitter make it a Labor Day to remember for Ramón Ortiz

A beautiful Labor Day 2006 matinee in Washington, DC, seemed unlikely to produce a pitching masterpiece. The National League Central Division-leading St. Louis Cardinals were at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium to face the Washington Nationals, who were last in the NL East Division. The Cardinals had won seven of their last nine games, while twice scoring 10 runs or more, to take a six-game lead over the second-place Cincinnati Reds.

Pitching for the Nationals was 33-year-old Ramón Ortiz, four years removed from winning 15 games for the 2002 World Series champion Anaheim Angels. Ortiz was winless in his last four starts with an August ERA of 7.50; the last three times he had faced St Louis, his ERA was a gaudy 10.38.

Taking the mound for the Cardinals was 28-year-old Jason Marquis. Slightly more than a year earlier, on August 27, 2005, he had pitched a two-hit shutout against the Nationals at RFK Stadium. Recently, however, Marquis had been a loser in five of his last seven starts, sporting an ERA of nearly 6.00 for the season. Twice he had allowed 12 earned runs or more. 

But the first six innings went quickly. Seven times Ortiz or Marquis retired the side in order, although the Nationals had several opportunities to score the game’s first run. In the third inning, second baseman Bernie Castro led off with a double and moved to third base on Marquis’ balk. Recently acquired Nook Logan grounded to Cardinals shortstop Aaron Miles as Castro held at third.1 Marquis then struck out Ortiz and Alfonso Soriano – second in the NL to Ryan Howard of the Philadelphia Phillies with 44 home runs – to leave Castro stranded at third.2

In the fifth, Logan attempted to score from second on Ortiz’s two-out infield single, but Miles threw him out at home.

The Cardinals, however, had yet to advance a runner past second base – and after St. Louis’s Scott Rolen popped up on the first pitch of the top of the seventh, Ortiz had retired 10 consecutive Cardinals, requiring only 19 pitches. John Rodriguez hit a sinking liner caught shin-high by Nationals right fielder Austin Kearns – the closest the Redbirds had come to a hit all afternoon – and Preston Wilson hit a routine grounder to third base, completing seven no-hit innings with the score still 0-0.

“He looked good the whole time,” Cardinals manager Tony La Russa said of Ortiz. “If you took strike one, he just got nastier and nastier.”3 

Marquis had matched Ortiz’s performance by tossing six scoreless innings of his own. After the seventh-inning stretch, however, Nick Johnson drew a four-pitch leadoff walk. On Marquis’ next pitch Kearns blasted a home run deep to left field, his 22nd of the season, putting the Nationals ahead, 2-0.

The excitement in the ballpark was palpable as Ortiz strolled to the mound in the top of the eighth. In 12 seasons of hosting major-league baseball, RFK Stadium had never witnessed a no-hitter, nor had one been thrown by the Nationals since the franchise relocated from Montreal a season earlier. Ortiz had never thrown a no-hitter in the major leagues, but he did pitch a no-hitter in the minors for Cedar Rapids against Quad City in the Class A Midwest League in 1997.4 

Ortiz rewarded the cheers by making quick work of the Cardinals. He needed just four pitches to set down Ronnie Belliard, catcher Gary Bennett, and (pinch-hitting for Marquis) his former Anaheim teammate Scott Spiezio, extending his streak to 15 consecutive Cardinals retired. The crowd of 31,092 extended a standing ovation as Ortiz headed for the dugout.

“I remember a couple of games when he was dominant like that,” Spiezio noted afterward. “He could be one of those guys who could go out and give up five or six runs and the next time throw a one- or two-hitter.”5 

Another large cheer greeted Ortiz as he strode to the plate to lead off the bottom of the eighth against relief pitcher Jorge Sosa. With a two-run lead, it was likely that Ortiz, a career .065 hitter with just two doubles and no homers in 123 big-league at-bats to that point, to end the at-bat quickly and save his energy for the ninth.

And that he did, swinging and hitting the first pitch over the left-field wall for his first career home run. As the crowd roared its approval of the improbable event, Ortiz grinned broadly and pumped his fist as he took his slow trot around the bases.

Two outs later, Washington’s Ryan Zimmerman hit his 40th double of the season. La Russa summoned lefty Randy Flores to face the lefty-swinging Johnson, who connected on another double – his 41st of the season – to drive in Zimmerman. The Nationals took a 4-0 lead into the ninth inning.

Ortiz returned for the ninth inning, with his pitch count at 88. Only four pitchers in National or American League history had hit home runs in the same game that they pitched a no-hitter: Wes Ferrell of the Cleveland Indians in 1931, Jim Tobin of the Boston Braves in 1944, Earl Wilson of the Boston Red Sox in 1962, and Rick Wise of the Philadelphia Phillies in 1971. Unlike Ortiz, all four were relatively strong hitters for pitchers.6 But Ortiz was now three outs away from joining them, with a boisterous home crowd ready to explode.

The leadoff batter for the Cardinals was Miles. As it happened, nine years earlier, Ortiz had retired Miles, then a Houston Astros minor leaguer, to complete his 1997 Midwest League no-hitter.

Miles hadn’t forgotten. “I wanted to return the favor, so to speak,” he said.7 “You don’t ever forget that, making the last out of a no-hitter.”8 

On the second pitch of the at-bat, Miles lined a sharp single to center field. After a collective groan of disappointment, the crowd remained standing in lengthy applause to acknowledge the performance.  “When you’re throwing a no-hitter in the ninth, you don’t think about anything,” Ortiz said.  “You think about throwing a good pitch, and if they hit it there’s nothing you can do.”9 Ortiz’s next pitch was lined by Chris Duncan to first baseman Johnson, who stepped on the bag for a double play.

Only one batter remained between Ortiz and a complete-game shutout. Ortiz only had one shutout in his major league career, a five-hit blanking of the Baltimore Orioles nearly four years to the day earlier in August 2002, and had thrown only two complete games since. The batter, however, was Cardinals slugger Albert Pujols, whose 42 homers ranked third in the NL. A day earlier, Pujols had slugged three home runs in a win over the Pittsburgh Pirates.

And on Ortiz’s fourth pitch, Pujols hit an estimated 462-foot home run well into the upper deck of RFK, a “no doubter” that made the home crowd groan as soon as it left the bat.10

With the no-hitter and shutout gone in the span of seven pitches, Nationals manager Frank Robinson pulled the weary Ortiz. “I wanted to leave him with a good feeling,” Robinson said.  “I wanted him to enjoy the moment.”11

Chad Cordero struck out Rolen to end the game. Ortiz lost his next three starts, posting an 8.27 ERA in 16⅓ innings pitched. The Nationals finished fifth in the NL East at 71-91. The Cardinals won the NL Central with an 83-78 record, then defeated the San Diego Padres in the NL Division Series, the New York Mets in the NL Championship Series, and the Detroit Tigers in the World Series.

Ortiz did not pitch another complete game or record another extra-base hit over the final four seasons of his big-league career. No no-hitters were thrown in 13 seasons of play at RFK Stadium, the Nationals’ home until they moved to Nationals Park for the 2008 season.12 In 2014 Jordan Zimmerman become the first Washington Nationals pitcher to throw a no-hitter. 

Author’s Note

I attended this game with my six-year-old son, who was so excited at Ortiz’s home run that he jumped up, spilling his helmet sundae onto the head of the fan in front of us. Probably due to the unlikely and giddy nature of the occurrence, and seeing the pure joy of an excited little boy, the sticky victim was most gracious about the accident.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Laura Peebles and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for pertinent information, including the box score and play-by-play.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/WAS/WAS200609040.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2006/B09040WAS2006.htm

Notes

1 The Nationals had obtained Logan in a conditional deal with the Detroit Tigers on September 1.

2 With 36 steals, Soriano was bidding to become only the fourth member of the 40-40 club in major-league history, a distinction that he attained by stealing his 40th base against the Milwaukee Brewers on September 16. He finished the season with 46 homers and 41 steals.

3 Barry Zvrluga, “It’s a Breeze for Ortiz,” Washington Post, September 5, 2006, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/sports/2006/09/05/its-a-breeze-for-ortiz-span-classbankheadnats-starter-takes-no-hit-bid-into-the-ninth-hits-a-home-run-nationals-4-cardinals-1-span/6629bd80-142f-451e-894c-fbddda1d14b2/.

4  “Nearly Perfect,” Cedar Rapids (Iowa) Gazette, August 8, 1997: 25.

5 Joe Strauss, “Miles Spoils No-No,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 5, 2006: B1.

6 Ferrell hit 38 home runs in 15 major-league seasons and even appeared in 13 games as a left fielder for the Indians in 1933. Wilson hit 35 career homers in 11 seasons. Tobin had a three-homer game for the Braves in 1942 and hit 17 in nine big-league seasons. Wise’s 15 homers in 18 seasons (only batted in 13) included two in his no-hit game.

7 Zvrluga, “It’s a Breeze for Ortiz.” 

8 Strauss.

9 Strauss.

10 Michael Clair, “Albert Pujols Has 500 Homers – and These Five Were Absolutely Blasted,” mlb.com, April 24, 2014, https://www.mlb.com/cut4/gif-albert-pujols-longest-memorable-home-runs-500/c-72875132; “STL@WSH: Pujols Smashes a Homer into the Upper Deck,” YouTube video (MLB.com), 0:37, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nC6DnrPWKg. Accessed January 2026.

11 Associated Press, “Ortiz Loses No-Hit Bid in Ninth,” Baltimore Sun, September 5, 2006: D7.

12 “The Ballparks-RFK Stadium,” thisgreatgame.com, https://thisgreatgame.com/ballparks-rfk-stadium/. Accessed February 2, 2026.