April 16, 1983: Expos’ Charlie Lea falls four outs short of a second no-hitter

On April 16, 1983, less than two years after tossing the third no-hitter in Montreal Expos history,1 26-year-old Charlie Lea was four outs away from throwing another one. But Houston Astros pinch-hitter Terry Puhl, held out of the starting lineup because of early-season batting struggles, fought off an inside pitch and pulled a broken-bat single into right field to snap the no-hit bid.2 The unflappable Lea retired the final four batters, tossing his second career one-hitter against the Astros and preserving a 2-0 Expos victory.

Despite making only one postseason appearance, Montreal had been the National League’s winningest team from 1979 to 1982,3 and expectations were high for 1983. In a preseason poll of United Press International baseball writers, the Expos were the top pick to win the World Series.4 Their star-studded lineup featured three future Hall of Famers in Gary Carter, Andre Dawson, and Tim Raines, and their starting rotation was led by the talented trio of Steve Rogers, Bill Gullickson, and Lea.

Lea, drafted by Montreal out of the University of Memphis in June 1978, had emerged as one of the NL’s best young right-handers early in 1981, his second full season in the majors. His first career complete game came in his no-hitter against the San Francisco Giants on May 10. He went 4-0 with a 0.25 ERA in May ’81, becoming the first Expos hurler to win the NL Pitcher of the Month Award since Ross Grimsley in April 1978.5

But Lea’s 1981 season was derailed by a sore elbow,6 and he was left off the postseason roster for the Expos’ NLDS win over the Philadelphia Phillies and their crushing NLCS loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers.7

Lea began the 1982 season as Montreal’s fifth starter and pitched only twice in the first month because of several postponed games.8 He returned to dominance soon after getting regular work. On May 26 at the Astrodome, Lea nearly tossed a perfect game: He surrendered a one-out single to Craig Reynolds in the first inning and then retired the next 26 Houston batters.9 He finished the season 12-10 with a 3.24 ERA.

In Lea’s first start of 1983, broadcast on NBC’s Game of the Week on April 9,10 he retired the first 17 Los Angeles hitters before surrendering a double in the sixth and two runs (one earned) in the seventh. He picked up the win in a 7-2 Expos victory.

Lea’s second start was exactly one week later, and it provided even more TV exposure. In addition to being NBC’s Game of the Week once again, the contest was also televised by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and its French-language counterpart, Radio-Canada.11

The Expos and Astros were playing the middle game of a three-game set on April 16. Montreal came into the contest in third place in the NL East Division with a 5-3 record, one game behind the first-place St. Louis Cardinals. The series marked the first trip to the Astrodome for new Expos manager Bill Virdon since he was fired by Houston the previous August.12 The Astros − not expected to contend in the NL West Division in 1983 − had a major-league-worst record of 1-9.13

Bob Knepper got the start for Houston. The 28-year-old southpaw was coming off a disappointing 5-15 season; in his first two starts in 1983 he was 0-1 with a solid 3.12 ERA.14

After limiting the Expos to a single in the first inning, Knepper ran into trouble in the second. Carter lined a one-out single to center field.15 With two out, shortstop Chris Speier and second baseman Doug Flynn came through with back-to-back singles, scoring Carter.

Lea retired the first eight batters in the game before walking his mound opponent, Knepper, with two out in the third. Lea set down the next five batters in order, including three on strikeouts.

With one out in the fifth, Lea issued back-to-back walks to first baseman Harry Spilman and right fielder Kevin Bass.16 Lea got out of the inning by getting rookie catcher John Mizerock to hit into an inning-ending 4-6-3 double play.17

When Lea returned to the dugout, 43-year reliever Woodie Fryman pointed out an issue with his delivery that had caused his sudden loss of control.18 Lea took Fryman’s advice, returned to the mound, and tossed one-two-three innings in the sixth and seventh.

Knepper, meanwhile, had settled down after giving up the second-inning run. He held the Expos to just two singles and a walk in his final six innings of work.

Lea took his no-hitter into the eighth. After he retired Spilman on a popup and Bass on a groundout, Houston manager Bob Lillis brought in the more experienced Puhl – at the time, the only Canada-born position player active in the big leagues19 – to bat for Mizerock, who had made his major-league debut just four days earlier. Puhl was just 3-for-27 (.111) at the plate so far in 1983.20 With the count 3-and-1 on the 26-year-old Puhl,21 Carter called for a fastball on the outside corner. Lea missed his spot and the pitch sailed inside for what would have been ball four had Puhl not swung.22 Puhl looped a broken-bat single just over the head of first baseman Al Oliver, ending the no-hit bid.23

Lea escaped the eighth by getting pinch-hitter Denny Walling to fly out to Raines in left.

The Expos added an insurance run in the ninth. Dawson crushed a high fastball from reliever Frank LaCorte into the first few rows of yellow seats in the upper deck in left field for a solo homer.24 It was Dawson’s third homer in three games.25 The blast, estimated at between 500 and 550 feet,26 was only the sixth home run hit into the Astrodome’s upper deck since the facility opened in 1965.27 Dawson called it the longest home run he had ever hit.28 “Easily, that was the longest [homer] and hardest-hit ball I’ve ever given up,” LaCorte said.29

The Astros went quietly in the bottom of the ninth, as Lea racked up his sixth one-two-three inning. He ended the game by striking out shortstop Dickie Thon, a Silver Slugger Award winner in 1983.30 Lea settled for a one-hitter with three walks and six strikeouts. In his five previous starts against the Astros, Lea was 4-1 with three shutouts and a miniscule 0.41 ERA.

“Sure, I was thinking about the no-hitter,” Lea admitted after the game. “But after I lost it, I was just trying to stay in the game and save the shutout.”31 The man who caught his May 1981 no-hitter and both one-hitters against the Astros disclosed Lea’s true feelings.32 “He told me it broke his heart,” Carter said. “He really wanted that [second] no-hitter.”33

The rest of the 1983 season was a roller-coaster ride for Montreal. The Expos led the division by 4½ games over the Cardinals and Phillies on June 28. They lost 13 of their next 17 games, largely because of a team-wide pitching funk, dropping them two games out of first. Helped by the most dominant stretch of Lea’s career – eight consecutive wins and a 1.91 ERA from August 4 to September 11 – the Expos briefly regained the top spot in September.

But Montreal lost 12 of its final 20 games, including costly doubleheader sweeps at the hands of the Phillies on September 14 and 22, and the Expos finished in third place with a mediocre 82-80 record. Philadelphia pulled away from the pack and ended up six games in front of Pittsburgh and eight ahead of Montreal.34 Lea wrapped up the season with a 16-11 record and a 3.12 ERA.

Lea was clearly Montreal’s ace in 1984. He tied the Cardinals’ Joaquín Andújar with a major-league-leading 13 wins in the season’s first half, posting a 2.91 ERA and earning the start in the All-Star Game alongside his batterymate, Carter. Lea limited the American League to one run in two innings of work, struck out Rod Carew and Lance Parrish, and earned the win in a 3-1 NL victory. (Carter blasted a solo homer to break a 1-1 tie and was voted the All-Star Game MVP for the second time in his career.35)

Although Lea posted a 2.86 ERA in the second half, he had poor run support and won only two of his 12 starts. Lea’s season was cut short by an injury in September.36

Lea, who had averaged 208 innings pitched from 1982 to 1984, experienced shoulder pain the following spring and missed the entire 1985 and 1986 seasons with a torn rotator cuff.37 He was finally healthy enough to pitch again for Montreal on September 16, 1987 – exactly three years after his previous major-league game.38 Lea faced nine batters and recorded just three outs in what was his last game in an Expos uniform.39

Lea spent his final season with the Minnesota Twins in 1988, posting a 4.85 ERA in 130 innings pitched. He compiled a career record of 62-48 and a 3.54 ERA in 144 starts and 8 relief appearances.

On November 11, 2011, Lea died after suffering a heart attack at his home in Tennessee.40 He was just 54 years old. Three months later, his longtime batterymate Carter also died.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Bruce Slutsky and copy-edited by John Fredland.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com, Retrosheet.org, Stathead.com, MLB.com, and the SABR biographies of Terry Puhl and Dickie Thon. Unless otherwise noted, all play-by-play information for this game was taken from the article “Lea One-Hits Astros in Saturday Triumph,” on page C-2 of the April 18, 1983, edition of the Montreal Gazette.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/HOU/HOU198304160.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1983/B04160HOU1983.htm

Photo credit

Photo of Charlie Lea courtesy the Trading Card Database.

Notes

1 Bill Stoneman tossed the first two no-hitters by a Montreal Expo. His first was thrown on April 17, 1969, on the road against the Philadelphia Phillies. It was just the ninth game in franchise history. Stoneman’s second no-hitter was on October 2, 1972, against the New York Mets at Parc Jarry. The fourth and final Expos no-hitter was Dennis Martinez’s perfect game on July 28, 1991 in Los Angeles.

2 United Press International, “Expos Shut Out Astros,” Winnipeg Sun, April 17, 1983: 26.

3 Montreal went 331-261 (.559) from 1979 to 1982. The next best record in the NL was 323-270 (.545) by the Philadelphia Phillies. The Expos went on to have the best record in the major leagues between 1979 and 1994: 1317 wins and 1167 losses (.530).

4 Eleven teams received at least one vote in the poll. The Expos were picked by 13 UPI writers to win the 1983 World Series. The New York Yankees came second with eight votes. The St. Louis Cardinals and Milwaukee Brewers tied for third with five votes each. The Baltimore Orioles ended up winning the 1983 World Series. They tied for sixth in the poll with three votes.

5 Grimsley went 20-11 in 1978. He was the only hurler to win 20 games for the Expos in their 36 seasons in Montreal.

6 Lea’s last outing of the 1981 season was on September 16. Neil Hohlfeld, “Expos’ Lea 1-Hits Astros to Dampen Initial Victory,” Houston Chronicle, April 17, 1983: 2-1.

7 Ian MacDonald, “Raines Strictly a Runner When Expos Meet Phils,” Montreal Gazette, October 6, 1981: 17; Ian MacDonald, “Raines, Scott Start Again as Expos Try to ‘Steal’ Win,” Montreal Gazette, October 13, 1981: 21.

8 Ian MacDonald, “Throwing Error by Oliver Moves Bucs Past Expos,” Montreal Gazette, April 16, 1982: D-1.

9 Lea did not throw a complete game or shutout, because the he was locked in a scoreless pitchers’ duel with Don Sutton after nine innings. Lea was removed in the top of the 10th for a pinch-hitter. The Expos scored four runs in the inning and Jeff Reardon pitched a scoreless bottom of the 10th. Lea was credited with the win.

10 Hohlfeld, “Expos’ Lea 1-Hits Astros to Dampen Initial Victory.”

11 The Expos-Astros contest on April 16 was supposed to be the secondary NBC game, but the Kansas City Royals and Milwaukee Brewers were snowed out in Milwaukee. Hohlfeld, “Expos’ Lea 1-Hits Astros to Dampen Initial Victory”; La Presse Canadienne, “Lea Lance Très Bien Devant Les Caméras,” (Montreal) Le Devoir, April 18, 1983: 9; “Saturday, April 16,” Montreal Gazette, April 16, 1983: 116.

12 Virdon had managed 1,067 games for the Astros over eight seasons. He led Houston to the NL West Division title in 1980 and the second-half title in 1981.

13 Houston had gone 0-9 to start the campaign, tying the National League record for most consecutive losses at the beginning of a season. (The 1918 Brooklyn Robins, 1919 Boston Braves, and 1962 New York Mets had also lost their first nine games; as of 2025, the NL record was 14 consecutive losses by the 1997 Chicago Cubs.) The Astros won their first game of the season on April 15, rallying from a 6-0 deficit to defeat the Expos, 7-6, in 10 innings.

14 Knepper had a 4.45 ERA in 1982. He was inconsistent during his 15-year big-league career; his best season was in 1978 with the San Francisco Giants when he went 17-11 with a 2.63 ERA. He was an All-Star in 1981 and 1988.

15 United Press International, “Expos Shut Out Astros.”

16 Spilman and Bass were playing for the slumping Ray Knight and Puhl, respectively. “Astrolog,” Houston Post, April 17, 1983: C-18; Hohlfeld, “Expos’ Lea 1-Hits Astros to Dampen Initial Victory.”

17 Mizerock was catching for Alan Ashby, who was out of the lineup with sore ribs. “Astrolog,” Houston Post, April 13, 1983: C-7.

18 La Presse Canadienne, “Lea Lance Très Bien Devant Les Caméras.”

19 Doug Frobel, who was born in Ottawa, Ontario, began the 1983 season in Triple A. He was called up by the Pittsburgh Pirates in August.

20 Puhl finished his 15-season big-league career with a .280 batting average. He had a career .283 average as a pinch-hitter.

21 Puhl had pitched at an Expos tryout camp as a teenager. He felt the Expos did not give him serious consideration that day, so he vowed to never return to another Montreal camp. He was later signed by Houston scout Wayne Morgan. In 400 career at-bats against the Expos, Puhl hit .253 with 6 homers and 28 RBIs.

22 La Presse Canadienne, “Lea Lance Très Bien Devant Les Caméras.”

23 Hohlfeld, “Expos’ Lea 1-Hits Astros to Dampen Initial Victory.”

24 The Houston Chronicle reported that the ball landed in the second row of the upper deck; the Houston Post writer thought it landed in the third row. Ray Buck, “One-Hitter Spoils Astros’ Day,” Houston Post, April 17, 1983: C-1.

25 Dawson had his fourth spectacular season in a row in 1983. He hit .299 with 32 homers and 113 RBIs and won his fourth consecutive Gold Glove Award. He led the NL in total bases (341) and tied José Cruz for the league lead in hits (189). He finished second in voting for the NL MVP Award with 213 points. Dale Murphy won the award with 318 voting points.

26 Hohlfeld, “Expos’ Lea 1-Hits Astros to Dampen Initial Victory.”

27 The first five sluggers to hit a home run into the Astrodome’s upper deck were Doug Rader of the Astros in a March 30, 1970 exhibition game, Jim Wynn of the Astros on April 12, 1970, Bernie Carbo of the Cincinnati Reds on May 22, 1970, Bob Bailey of the Expos on August 16, 1970, and Greg Luzinski of the Phillies on May 21, 1977. The seventh player to perform the feat was Eric Anthony of the Astros on May 17, 1990. Six other players hit a home run into the Astrodome’s upper deck from 1994 to ’99, which was during the steroid era. The Astros played their last game in the facility on October 9, 1999. “Upper-Deck Shots,” Houston Chronicle, August 15, 1999: B-9.

28 As of October 2025, video of Dawson’s tape-measure homer was available on YouTube. Brian Kappler, “Lea One-Hits Astros in Saturday Triumph,” Montreal Gazette, April 18, 1983: C-2.

29 Neil Hohlfeld, “Dawson Strikes Gold in Astrodome with Majestic Homer,” Houston Chronicle, April 17, 1983: 2-1.

30 Thon was an All-Star in 1983 and he led all NL position players with 7.4 Baseball-Reference Wins Above Replacement (bWAR). On April 8, 1984, the 25-year-old Thon was struck in the left eye by a pitch, leaving him with permanent partial blindness. He played nine more seasons in the big leagues, but he was never the same player.

31 Associated Press, “Expos’ Lea Loses No-Hit Bid to Astros Pinch-Hitter Puhl,” Saskatoon Star-Phoenix, April 18, 1983: B-4.

32 As measured by Game Score, Lea’s May 10, 1981, no-hitter (Game Score of 91), his May 26, 1982, one-hitter (Game Score of 91), and his April 16, 1983, one-hitter (Game Score of 88) were the three best games of his career.

33 Kappler, “Lea One-Hits Astros in Saturday Triumph.”

34 The Phillies defeated the Dodgers in the NLCS before losing the World Series to the Orioles in five games.

35 Carter also won the award by hitting two home runs in the 1981 All-Star Game.

36 Lea had strained muscles in his back and side. His last outing of the season was on September 16. Brian Kappler, “Pitching Woes Loom as Expos Lose,” Montreal Gazette, September 21, 1984: D-2.

37 Paul Carbray, “Mets, Gooden Spoil Lea’s Return to Big O,” Montreal Gazette, September17, 1987: E-1.

38 Mark Vancil, “Lea Calls It Quits with No Regrets,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, March 24, 1989: C-6.

39 Lea gave up four earned runs against the New York Mets on four hits and two walks in one-plus inning of work at Stade Olympique.

40 Ian MacDonald, “Charlie Lea – 1956-2011,” Montreal Gazette, November 14, 2011: B-4.