July 20, 1986: Getting everyone involved: Neil Allen’s 29-batter, 29 balls-in-play shutout lifts White Sox over Yankees

Neil Allen threw back-to-back shutouts for the Chicago White Sox in 1986, and the second one, on July 20, was a “no true outcomes” performance.1 In an 8-0 win over his former New York Yankees teammates at Yankee Stadium, Allen recorded no walks, no strikeouts, and no home runs. (Nor did he hit a batter.)

“People will think it’s a mistake when they pick up the box score tomorrow,” Allen joked after the game. “I ain’t never pitched a game without giving up at least one walk.”

“I’ll bet he’s never pitched a game without a strikeout, either,” White Sox manager Jim Fregosi added.2

As a rookie in 1979, Allen emerged as the closer for the New York Mets and led the club in saves from 1980 through 1982. In June 1983 he was the St. Louis Cardinals’ main return in the deal that sent Keith Hernandez to New York. Used as a starter and in relief in St. Louis, Allen was anointed the closer when Bruce Sutter left the Cardinals as a free agent after the 1984 season.

The pressure in St. Louis to be the guy traded for Hernandez and then the guy who replaced Sutter proved to be too much for Allen, a native of Kansas City, Kansas.3

Two years and a month after the Hernandez deal, the Cardinals sold Allen’s contract to the Yankees on July 16, 1985. The following February, the Yankees traded him to the White Sox as part of a seven-player deal. After spending April 1986 in the bullpen, the 28-year-old Allen was moved into the rotation, even though by then he had pitched in relief in all but 29 of his 349 career appearances.4

It was a turbulent season in Chicago. After a 26-38 start, manager Tony La Russa was fired on June 19, and the White Sox brought in Fregosi, who had managed the California Angels from 1978 through 1981.

Heading into the game on July 20, the White Sox were 41-48, 7½ games behind the Angels in the American League West Division. Allen had a 4.35 ERA in 93 innings but had been hot in July: 2-1 with a 2.25 ERA. A week earlier, on July 13, Allen had blanked the Baltimore Orioles on five hits and a walk, for only his fourth career shutout and first in three years.5

The Yankees, 52-40, were six games behind the AL East Division-leading Boston Red Sox, their 30-18 start over the first two months ruined by a 12-16 mark in June. Buoyed by an 8-5 start to July, the Bronx Bombers returned to Yankee Stadium after the All-Star break for a four-game set against the White Sox. They won the first two games, but an 8-3 loss on July 19 – Old Timers Day – meant the Yankees needed a win to avoid a split.

With starters Ron Guidry, Tommy John, and Joe Niekro on the disabled list and rookie Bob Tewksbury nursing a stiff shoulder, the Yankees’ pitching depth had been tested. Rookie Scott Nielsen, making his third major-league start, had been shelled for 13 hits and 7 earned runs a day earlier, and manager Lou Piniella called on 32-year-old lefty Bob Shirley to make a spot start on Sunday afternoon.

Mostly used out of the bullpen, Shirley had thus far allowed a 5.77 ERA in 64 innings, but he had fared better in his May 14 start against the White Sox, holding them to two runs on five hits and two walks while striking out seven in eight innings.

Neither pitcher allowed a batter to reach in the first inning. In the top of the second, Chicago’s Ron Kittle homered off Shirley. Back-to-back singles then put runners on the corners with nobody out for Bronx native Bobby Bonilla, who singled up the middle to knock in a second run.

Shirley escaped further damage, but in the third, three consecutive hits from John Cangelosi, Ozzie Guillén, and Harold Baines resulted in another run and his early exit. Before the inning was over, reliever Tim Stoddard had allowed three more runs on a single by Kittle, an error by second baseman Willie Randolph on a Greg Walker grounder, and a double by Wayne Tolleson. Baines doubled in Guillén an inning later for a seventh run, and then the White Sox scoring ended as it began with a solo home run from Kittle in the seventh, his 15th of the season.6

Meanwhile, the Yankees kept putting balls in play against Allen, but without success. They had a potent lineup, one that went on to lead the AL in on-base percentage and slugging percentage, while finishing second in batting average only to the Cleveland Indians. Center fielder Rickey Henderson was leading the majors with 87 runs scored; he and right fielder Dave Winfield were later inducted into the Hall of Fame.

First baseman Don Mattingly, the reigning AL MVP, was second in the AL with a .343 batting average; designated hitter Mike Easler was fourth at .331.7 Randolph led the majors with 66 walks, and third baseman Mike Pagliarulo’s 22 home runs were second only to José Canseco of the Oakland Athletics.8

Still, the first 14 Yankees went to the plate without anyone reaching base. New York’s first baserunner was with two outs in the fifth inning on Winfield’s line drive single to center, but he was stranded when Butch Wynegar flied out. An inning later, Henderson hit a grounder past Tolleson at third base and down the left-field line for a two-out double, but he too was left there as Claudell Washington flied out.

No one else got on base for New York. When White Sox second baseman Tim Hulett fielded Washington’s grounder with two outs in the ninth and threw to Walker at first, Allen had completed his two-hit shutout in just two hours and 17 minutes.

Allen needed just 96 pitches, including five or fewer in six of the nine innings.9 He faced 29 batters, resulting in 13 flyouts, 12 groundouts, two lineouts, Winfield’s single, and Henderson’s double.

Despite all those balls in play, not one involved Allen. According to Stathead, as of 2026 there were three “all contact” shutouts since Allen’s, but his is the most recent in which the pitcher didn’t help make an out.10

“I have confidence in changing speeds now,” Allen told reporters after the game. “It makes you a whole different pitcher. The lead helped. I was able to experiment more. They hit some balls hard today, but they were right at people. I guess it was my day.”11

Allen said his newfound confidence reflected the faith the White Sox had shown in him.

“At least here, I didn’t have to come in and prove anything. When the Sox got me, they just got a right arm with some experience in the big leagues,” he said.

“I finally really feel good and confident. I had no confidence since my Mets days. Now I go to the mound and know I can win.”

Allen also had added a third pitch to his repertoire: a changeup.

“Basically, he was a two-pitch pitcher,” Fregosi said. “He’s never known how to pitch. As a reliever, he’s never had the opportunity to pitch with finesse. Now he’s finding out how to pitch to spots and change speeds.”12

Allen’s back-to-back shutouts came without the benefit of pitching to catcher Carlton Fisk, who was seriously ill with the flu and didn’t start a game between July 8 and July 21. Instead, it was Joel Skinner behind the plate for both shutouts. Skinner, asked if he was feeling pressure taking over for the future Hall of Famer, replied: “Pressure is when you’re not playing.” 13

The shutouts had Allen dreaming of a strong finish to his season. “I just hope no one pinches me and wakes me up,” he said. “This is too good to be true.”14

Alas, the “pinch” came in his very next start, July 25 against the Orioles, as he left the game with a stiff shoulder after allowing two runs on five hits and no walks in six innings.15 It was Chicago’s fifth loss of an eight-game losing streak that followed Allen’s Yankee Stadium gem.

Although the injury at first was hoped to cost him just one turn in the rotation,16 Allen was out until the final week of the season, getting a no-decision in a five-inning start on October 1. He finished 1986 with a 7-2 record and 3.82 ERA in 22 appearances, including 17 starts. The White Sox came in fifth in the AL West, 20 games behind the Angels.17

Returning to Chicago the following season, Allen was released on August 29 after going 0-7 with a 7.07 ERA in 10 starts and five relief appearances, and re-signed by the Yankees, who returned him to the bullpen where he again found success. His major league career ended after three games with the Cleveland Indians in 1989; an attempted comeback in the minors with the Reds ended after 12 games with the Nashville Sounds.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Ray Danner and copy-edited by Keith Thursby.

Photo credit: Neil Allen, Trading Card Database

Sources

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

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYA/NYA198607200.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1986/B07200NYA1986.htm

Notes

1 “Three true outcomes” – or, in this case, no true outcomes – wasn’t around as a phrase in 1986. It was first used a decade later by Christina Kahrl in a Usenet bulletin board discussion about how nearly half of Rob Deer’s plate appearances ended in a walk, home run, or strikeout. In 2000, Rany Jazayerli popularized the term on the Baseball Prospectus website. David Firstman, “The Growth of ‘Three True Outcomes’: From Usenet Joke to Baseball Flashpoint,” SABR Baseball Research Journal, Vol. 47, No. 1 (2018), https://sabr.org/journal/article/the-growth-of-three-true-outcomes-from-usenet-joke-to-baseball-flashpoint/.

2 Jack Lang, “Allen Quiets Yank Bats – And Lou,” New York Daily News, July 21, 1986: 101. (Yankees manager Lou Piniella, eating in his office after the game, refused to speak to reporters. “Go speak to the players,” he snapped, before returning to his sandwich.) Indeed, Allen had at least one walk in each of his 43 career starts prior to this game. In his next start, July 25, he again didn’t walk a batter in six innings before leaving with a stiff shoulder; the only other start in his career with no walks came on April 10, 1987, when he was pulled after giving up three runs on four hits in two innings. One notable footnote, however, came on May 31, 1988, when he didn’t walk a batter in a nine-inning relief performance after starter Al Leiter was removed after one batter. Allen struck out at least one batter in every start of his career, except for four starts when he did not make it through three innings.

3 Ed Sherman, “Allen Hopes New Team, League Will Erase Bad Memories,” Arizona Republic, February 26, 1986: C2. “Neil Allen doesn’t have to be the pitcher who was traded for Keith Hernandez, and he doesn’t have to be the stopper to replace Bruce Sutter. ‘I just have to be Neil Allen,’ said the new White Sox right-hander.”

4 Sherman. Ken Harrelson, executive vice president of baseball operations for the White Sox, said in spring training that the goal was to develop Allen’s change-up to make him a starting pitcher.

5 A 3-0 win over the Dodgers on July 24, 1983. Coincidentally, it followed a three-hit shutout of the San Diego Padres on July 19, 1983, the only other time in Allen’s career he threw back-to-back shutouts. Allen’s previous complete game also came in 1983, on September 30.

6 Ten days later, on July 30, the White Sox traded Kittle–and two other members of their July 20 lineup, third baseman Tolleson and catcher Skinner–to the Yankees in a six-player deal. They also traded Bonilla, their left fielder on July 20, to the Pittsburgh Pirates for pitcher José DeLeón on July 23.

7 Boston’s Wade Boggs led the AL with a .365 average.

8 Canseco had 23 home runs.

9 Dave van Dyck, “Allen Drives Yanks Nuts On 2-Hitter,” Chicago Sun-Times, July 21, 1986: 112.

10 The only other all-contact shutouts since Allen were by Boston’s Roger Clemens on July 21, 1987, and Rick Porcello of the Detroit Tigers on July 1, 2014. (Jeff Ballard of the Baltimore Orioles had a complete game seven-hit shutout with no home runs, walks, or strikeouts on August 21, 1989, but he hit two batters.) Clemens had two assists on comebackers; Porcello had an assist on a groundout and a putout covering on a groundball to first. The last pitcher to throw a no-true-outcomes shutout without fielding a ball was Morrie Martin of the Philadelphia Athletics on July 19, 1951.

11 Ed Sherman, “Allen Blanks Yanks,” Chicago Tribune, July 21, 1986: 3.

12 Dave van Dyck, “Allen May Have Found a Home,” The Sporting News, August 4, 1986: 25.

13 “A.L. West: White Sox.” Fisk returned on July 22; he walked in the top of the first, then was pulled for Skinner with two outs in the bottom of the first inning.

14 Tom Verducci, “Yankees Haunted by Past: Allen Hurls 2-Hitter Against Former Team,” Newsday, July 21, 1986: 103.

15 “Orioles 6, White Sox 2,” Philadelphia Inquirer, July 26, 1986: 34.

16 “A.L. West: White Sox,” The Sporting News, August 11, 1986: 20.

17 The Yankees were second to the Red Sox in the AL East, 5½ games out.