April 27, 1986: Error-filled 7-run inning dooms Steve Carlton, Phillies in Pittsburgh

When 41-year-old Steve Carlton faced the Pittsburgh Pirates on April 27, 1986, the Philadelphia Phillies’ left-hander led all active major-league pitchers with 315 career wins and ranked second only to Nolan Ryan in all-time strikeouts – but an early-season 7.25 ERA reflected struggles uncharacteristic of his Hall of Fame career. Carlton’s bid to regain normalcy in Pittsburgh was shattered in a bizarre second inning, as three successive Phillies errors spawned seven Pirates runs, and Pittsburgh rolled to a 13-5 victory at Three Rivers Stadium.

Carlton had remained remarkably effective as his big-league tenure crossed the two-decade mark.1 He won his fourth National League Cy Young Award in 1982,2 then topped the NL in innings pitched and strikeouts for Philadelphia’s ‘83 pennant-winners.3 Even in 1985, when a rotator cuff injury sent him to the disabled list for the first time in his career and snapped his 19-season streak of double-digit wins, Carlton’s ERA still beat the league average.4

But the Cincinnati Reds tagged him for seven runs on Opening Day 1986, banishing the 22-year veteran to the showers before an out was recorded in the fifth inning.5 Two starts later, a 47-pitch first inning bogged down Carlton’s April 18 loss to the New York Mets. His sole win through four outings, on April 23 against the Montreal Expos, was marred by six walks over 5⅓ innings and left his season ERA more than four runs higher than his lifetime 3.06 mark.6

The Phillies followed Carlton’s win in Montreal by beating the Pirates in the first three games of their four-game weekend series. Carlton took the ball in the series finale, aiming to secure the sweep.

Under first-year manager Jim Leyland, Pittsburgh had won five in a row earlier in April, including a 10-inning victory over the Phillies on April 14, the only playable night of a rain-plagued three-day stop in Philadelphia.7 But a darkness-suspended 13-inning tie with the Chicago Cubs on April 20 paused the streak,8 and five straight losses had followed.

While Phillies pitching coach Claude Osteen had cited Montreal’s chill as a factor in Carlton’s control lapses,9 Sunday afternoon in Pittsburgh brought agreeable temperatures in the upper 70s.10 With a crowd of 17,218 on hand, Carlton’s day began promisingly. He followed a three-up, three-down bottom of the first by hitting a two-out, two-strike RBI single in the second,11 giving the Phillies a 1-0 lead against 26-year-old right-hander Mike Bielecki.12

But everything unraveled after Mike Brown’s four-pitch walk opened the bottom of the second.13 Brown took third when rookie left fielder Mike Diaz – a former Philadelphia farmhand starting for the third time all season, all against lefty pitchers14 – singled solidly to center.15 Tony Peña walked to load the bases with none out.

Phillies manager John Felske played the infield back, and Sid Bream grounded sharply to Von Hayes, reassigned to first base in 1986 after three seasons in the outfield.16 The ball hit the dirt cutout in the artificial turf and went between Hayes’ legs. Brown and Diaz scored on the error for a 2-1 Pirates lead.17

Runners were at the corners, and Rafael Belliard hit a one-hopper to third baseman Mike Schmidt, back at his nine-time Gold Glove position after a 1985 stint at first base.18 Schmidt looked Peña back to third, then threw to second for the attempted forceout on Bream. Luis Aguayo, filling in with regular second baseman Juan Samuel on the disabled list with a rib injury, dropped the throw for another error.19 Peña came home with Pittsburgh’s third run.

Bielecki tried to sacrifice but popped it up on the first-base side of the mound. Schmidt dashed in front of Hayes and reached for the downward-plunging bunt – but the ball clanked off his glove and bounced into foul territory.20 The Phillies had committed their third error in three batters. The bases again were loaded, and Carlton’s “usually impassive façade was beginning to show crinkles of anger,” observed the Philadelphia Daily News.21

Aguayo took the out at first on R.J. Reynolds’s grounder; Bream scored to make it 4-1. Bill Almon – starting at third for the second straight day because former Phil Jim Morrison was batting .19022 – sliced a lazy fly into right field for a two-run double, the Pirates’ second hit of the inning.23 Almon stole third on the first pitch to Johnny Ray, then scored on Ray’s sacrifice fly.24

Pittsburgh’s 10-batter parade concluded when Steve Jeltz turned Brown’s bouncer to short into the third out.25 For just the second time in 4,904 big-league innings, Carlton had given up seven runs in a single frame – though only two runs were earned.26 “[O]ne of the ugliest innings in recent Phillies history was mercifully at an end,” the Philadelphia Daily News proclaimed.27

Carlton remained in the game and even contributed to Philadelphia’s middle-innings rally with his bat. In the fourth, Aguayo led off with a triple and scored on Carlton’s one-out single. Two more singles and Hayes’ sacrifice fly brought in Carlton, and it was a 7-3 game. Almon’s diving catch of Schmidt’s liner kept the Phillies from drawing even closer.28

Almon then led off the bottom of the fourth with his second homer in two days, resetting Pittsburgh’s lead at five runs. It was the only run Carlton allowed after his nightmarish second inning, even though leaky fielding continued to bedevil Philadelphia. Both Aguayo’s third-inning error and Schmidt’s fifth-inning miscue triggered bases-loaded, one-out messes, but Carlton, who threw 110 pitches in five innings,29 stranded the runners. Diaz’s fifth-inning strikeout was Carlton’s 3,943rd of his career.30

The Phillies continued their comeback in the sixth. Jeltz drew a leadoff walk against Bielecki, and Felske let Carlton, a .201 career hitter, bat one more time. First baseman Bream gloved Carlton’s bid for a three-hit game but failed to control the ball, and Carlton was safe on the error.31

Charles Hudson, the previous day’s starting and winning pitcher, ran for Carlton, 32 and Leyland called on rookie lefty Bob Patterson. Milt Thompson’s one-out double scored Jeltz, and second baseman Ray’s two-out error on Schmidt’s bouncer – the game’s seventh error – let in Hudson to cut Pittsburgh’s lead to 8-5.33

The potential tying run was at the plate, and right-handed-batting Glenn Wilson, coming off a 102-RBI season in 1985, hit for left-handed-swinging right fielder Joe Lefebvre. Pittsburgh’s bullpen gate opened for righty Bob Walk, who had started Game One of the 1980 World Series for the Phillies as a rookie but had pitched in just 17 big-league games since 1982, his career sidetracked by what the Pittsburgh Press called “a major-league arm under a Pony League head.”34 Wilson hit into an inning-ending forceout, leaving it a three-run gap.

Veteran Dave Stewart stranded Pirates in scoring position in the sixth and seventh innings35 –including Walk after a seventh-inning leadoff double – to keep the Phillies within reach. Walk matched Stewart with scoreless frames in the seventh and eighth. Pinch-hitter Greg Legg’s first big-league hit, an eighth-inning single, was Philadelphia’s only baserunner.36

Felske brought in Larry Andersen for the bottom of the eighth. Andersen, a reliable member of the Phillies’ bullpen since 1983, entered with a 1.42 ERA in five appearances but had no answers against the Pirates. Brown led off with a double and came home on Joe Orsulak’s single.37 Center fielder Thompson lost Peña’s blooper in the sun; Orsulak scored Pittsburgh’s 10th run on the RBI double.38

Bream hit a liner toward first. Hayes dived, dropped the ball, and watched Bream reach base safely. It was scored a hit.39

“We had five errors on the board, and I guarantee you we had five more that weren’t,” Felske said.40

Two outs later, back-to-back-to-back RBI doubles by Walk, Reynolds, and Almon made it a five-run inning and 13-5 blowout. Walk had the only two-double game of his 14-season career. Almon had four RBIs and his only three-extra-base-hit game in 15 big-league seasons.

The 29-year-old Walk retired the Phillies in the ninth to conclude the 3⅓-inning save, one of his career-high 44 appearances in 1986.41

“We needed this win,” he said. “We needed to show the people we weren’t flashes in the pan [after the earlier winning streak].”42

Still, the Pirates finished last in the NL East Division for the third season in a row with a 64-98 record, 44 games behind the World Series champion Mets. The Phillies came in second at 86-75, 21½ games back of New York.

Carlton returned to Three Rivers Stadium three months after the defensive debacle – but not as a Phil.

After he posted an 11.07 ERA in five June starts, walking more batters than he struck out, the Phillies terminated Carlton’s 15-season tenure by releasing him on June 24.43 He signed with the San Francisco Giants nine days later.44 Against the Pirates on July 26, he went seven innings in a 9-0 Giants win.45

It turned out to be the 319th and final NL win of his career. San Francisco released Carlton on August 7, and he signed with the Chicago White Sox, beginning a three-club tour of the American League that lasted until his retirement after the 1988 season.46

Author’s Note

The author, age 11 in April 1986, watched the game with his father from Section 630 at Three Rivers Stadium. He remembers the stadium organist playing the keyboard riff from Dire Straits’ “Walk of Life,” a hit song from the previous winter,47 as Bob Walk pulled into second base on his seventh-inning double.

Ticket stub from the author’s personal memorabilia collection.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Thomas Merrick and copy-edited by Mike Eisenbath.

Photo credit: Bob Walk, 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/PIT/PIT198604270.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1986/B04270PIT1986.htm

Notes

1 He had debuted with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1965 and was traded to the Phillies for pitcher Rick Wise before the 1972 season.

2 Peter Pascarelli, “Carlton Wins Cy Young 4th Time: Leader in Strikeouts and Victories Scores Landslide in Voting,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 27, 1982.

3 Frank Dolson, “The Big Lefty, Back for More,” Philadelphia Inquirer, September 24, 1983: 1-D.

4 Peter Pascarelli, “Carlton Is Placed on Disabled List: Strained Left Rotator Cuff Is Responsible for 21-Day Rest,” Philadelphia Inquirer, June 23, 1985: 1-E. Carlton had a 1-8 record in 16 starts in 1985, but his 3.33 ERA was enough for a 112 ERA+.

5 Frank Dolson, “A Great Script, But Something Went Wrong,” Philadelphia Inquirer, April 8, 1986: 1-C.

6 Peter Pascarelli, “Phillies and Carlton Beat Expos, 5-4: Bedrosian Hangs On to Get Save,” Philadelphia Inquirer, April 24, 1986: 1-E.

7 Bob Hertzel, “Pirates Find They Have Some Angels in Outfield,” Pittsburgh Press, April 15, 1986: C2; Bob Smizik, “Pirates’ Roll Put on Hold by Untimely Rainout …,” Pittsburgh Press, April 17, 1986: D1.

8 When the game was resumed on August 11, the Pirates won, 10-8, in 17 innings. Charley Feeney, “Pirates Take Two from Cubs,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, August 12, 1986: 26.

9 Pascarelli, “Phillies and Carlton Beat Expos, 5-4.”

10 “Today’s Weather,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, April 28, 1986: 8.

11 Jayson Stark, “Phils Fall to Bucs, 13-5, in a Comedy of Errors,” Philadelphia Inquirer, April 28, 1986: 1-F.

12 Bielecki, who was in third major-league season, had made Pittsburgh’s Opening Day roster after recovering from offseason back surgery. His previous two starts had resulted in no-decisions, including a five-inning, one-run outing in the Pirates’ 10-inning win over the Phillies on April 14. Bob Hertzel, “Bielecki Started His Comeback After Conquering Bad Attitude,” Pittsburgh Press, April 15, 1986: C2.

13 Stark, “Phils Fall to Bucs, 13-5, in a Comedy of Errors.”

14 The Pirates obtained Diaz from the Phillies in a trade for minor-league catcher Steve Herz in April 1985. The trade was later reported as being part of the deal that sent relief pitcher Kent Tekulve to Philadelphia for reliever Al Holland earlier that month. Bob Hertzel, “Diaz Gets Revenge on Baseball World by Getting Noticed,” Pittsburgh Press, April 1, 1986: D1.

15 Bill Conlin, “Phillies Undergo Another Bloody Sunday,” Philadelphia Daily News, April 28, 1986: 92.

16 Hayes was moved to first after the Phillies acquired outfielder Gary Redus in a December 1985 trade that sent pitcher John Denny to the Cincinnati Reds. Bill Conlin, “Virgil Dealt; Denny Next?: Phils Get Bedrosian, Thompson in Trade, Set Sights on Redus,” Philadelphia Daily News, December 11, 1985: 100; Peter Pascarelli, “Hayes Accepts One Move, Dislikes Another,” Philadelphia Inquirer, March 3, 1986: 1-E; Conlin, “Phillies Undergo Another Bloody Sunday.”

17 Stark, “Phils Fall to Bucs, 13-5, in a Comedy of Errors.”

18 Gene Collier, “Some Dare Call It Baseball (Chuckle, Chuckle),” Pittsburgh Press, April 28, 1986: C1. The Phillies moved Schmidt to first when they promoted Rick Schu from Triple A in June 1985. Schmidt returned to third in the offseason 1985-86 positional shuffle that landed Gary Redus in the outfield and brought Hayes to first. Conlin, “Virgil Dealt; Denny Next?”

19 Collier, “Some Dare Call It Baseball (Chuckle, Chuckle)”; Bill Conlin, “Samuel Takes Rips; Ribs Seem OK,” Philadelphia Daily News, April 25, 1986: 115.

20 Conlin, “Phillies Undergo Another Bloody Sunday.”

21 Conlin, “Phillies Undergo Another Bloody Sunday.”

22 Chuck Finder, “Almon Gets Batter’s Top Compliment,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, April 28, 1986: 9. Morrison returned to the lineup and went on to lead the 1986 Pirates with 23 home runs and 88 RBIs.

23 Conlin, “Phillies Undergo Another Bloody Sunday.”

24 United Press International, “Bob Walk Just Loves to Beat the Phillies,” York (Pennsylvania) Dispatch, April 28, 1986: 12.

25 Conlin, “Phillies Undergo Another Bloody Sunday.”

26 The only other seven-run inning in Carlton’s career had occurred 10 years to the month earlier, on April 17, 1976, when Carlton allowed seven second-inning runs to the Cubs at Wrigley Field. Behind Schmidt’s four home runs, the Phillies rallied for an 18-16 win in 10 innings, leaving Carlton with a no-decision.

27 Conlin, “Phillies Undergo Another Bloody Sunday.”

28 Finder, “Almon Gets Batter’s Top Compliment.”

29 Conlin, “Phillies Undergo Another Bloody Sunday.”

30 Ryan, who was with the Houston Astros in 1986, had 4,112 career strikeouts at this point.

31 Stark, “Phils Fall to Bucs, 13-5, in a Comedy of Errors.”

32 The Philadelphia Daily News labeled Felske’s letting Carlton bat, then using Hudson to pinch-run, as a “weird sequence” resulting from major-league baseball’s use of a 24-man roster in 1986, rather than the 25-player squad that had been standard since 1968. Conlin, “Phillies Undergo Another Bloody Sunday”; Jayson Stark, “Presenting a New Baseball Era That May Be a Short One,” Philadelphia Inquirer, March 24, 1986: 1-F. In April 1987, arbitrator George Nicolau ruled that the 24-man roster – which had been an option under baseball’s 1985 labor agreement – did not violate the agreement, and every team adhered to it through the 1989 season. Baseball’s 1990 labor agreement mandated a 25-man roster in 1991, and every team wound up playing the 1990 season at 25. Glenn Macnow, “Arbitrator Upholds Cut in Major-League Rosters, Philadelphia Inquirer, April 16, 1987: 4-D; “Teams Trimming Rosters to 25 Players,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 1, 1990: 14.

33 Stark, “Phils Fall to Bucs, 13-5, in a Comedy of Errors.”

34 Bob Hertzel, “Raindrops No Longer Fall on All-Star Walk’s Head,” Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh Press, July 11, 1988: B2. The Phillies had traded Walk to the Braves for outfielder Gary Matthews in March 1981, and Walk had signed with Pittsburgh after Atlanta released him during spring training 1984. Entering 1986, Walk had spent time in both the majors and Triple A in every season but one since 1980. Bob Hertzel, “Walk Takes a Step Toward Pitching Job,” Pittsburgh Press, March 21, 1986: D5.

35 Stewart had gone 0-6 with a 5.42 ERA for the Phillies and Texas Rangers in 1985 and had postseason surgery on his right elbow. In January 1986, the Phillies’ deal to sell Stewart to Nippon Professional Baseball’s Yomiuri Giants for $1 million fell through, reportedly because the terms of Stewart’s probation for a January 1985 misdemeanor conviction for soliciting a prostitute prohibited him from leaving the country for an extended period. Bill Conlin, “‘Smoke’ Doesn’t Clear, Stewart Rejoins Phils,” Philadelphia Daily News, February 1, 1986: 35. Less than two weeks after this game, on May 9, the 29-year-old Stewart was released by the Phillies with a 6.57 ERA in eight appearances. Peter Pascarelli, “Dave Stewart Is Given Unconditional Release,” Philadelphia Inquirer, May 10, 1986: 3-D.  He signed with his hometown Oakland A’s and recorded four consecutive seasons of 20 or more wins, finishing no worse than fourth in the AL’s Cy Young Award voting each year.

36 It was the third game of Legg’s 14-game major-league career with the Phillies in 1986 and 1987.

37 Orsulak had come in as a defensive replacement in center field in the seventh. Reynolds had moved from center to left.

38 Stark, “Phils Fall to Bucs, 13-5, in a Comedy of Errors.”

39 Collier, “Some Dare Call It Baseball (Chuckle, Chuckle).”

40 Collier, “Some Dare Call It Baseball (Chuckle, Chuckle).”

41 Walk remained a key member of Pittsburgh’s pitching staff until his retirement after the 1993 season, representing the club in the 1988 All-Star Game and winning two NL Championship Series games. Walk credited mentorship from pitching coaches Johnny Sain, Chuck Hartenstein, and Ray Miller and teammate Rick Reuschel with aiding his career recovery in the mid-1980s. Bob Hertzel, “Walk Learns Better Pitching by the Numbers,” Pittsburgh Press, March 11, 1989: C1.

42 United Press International, “Walk Has Soft Spot for Phillies,” Harrisburg (Pennsylvania) Evening News, April 28, 1986: D1.

43 Bill Conlin, “Carlton Released: Phil Lefty out after 14 Years,” Philadelphia Daily News, June 25, 1986: 96

44 Al Corona, “Giants Confident about Carlton,” San Francisco Examiner, July 4, 1986: F-1.

45 Glenn Schwarz, “Lefty Shows He’s Still Got It: Giants Shut Out Bucs as Carlton Pitches 7 Innings,” San Francisco Examiner, July 27, 1986: C-1.

46 Carlton pitched for the Cleveland Indians and Minnesota Twins in 1987 and wrapped up his career with the Twins in 1988. He retired with 329 career wins and 4,132 lifetime strikeouts and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1994.

47 “Walk of Life” peaked at #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the week ending January 25, 1986. “Dire Straits,” Billboard.com, accessed April 10, 2026, https://www.billboard.com/artist/dire-straits/.