April 30, 2002: Al Leiter becomes first pitcher to beat all 30 major-league franchises

The New York Mets lost Mike Piazza to a strained left hamstring in the first inning of their 4-3 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals on April 23, 2002.1 Despite missing their slugging catcher, they won four of their next five games to move into a first-place tie with the Montreal Expos in the National League East Division as they arrived in Phoenix for a series against the Arizona Diamondbacks starting on April 30.

The defending World Series champion Diamondbacks were also a first-place team. After being swept by the San Diego Padres in early April, they won the next their next five series, including six of eight games before the Mets’ visit. The Diamondbacks entered the game tied with their NL West rival Los Angeles Dodgers for the best record in the National League (16-9).

A crowd of 36,743 showed up at Bank One Ballpark to see the first game between the division leaders.

Piazza was slated to play that evening. The Mets catcher was anxious to return, showing up early for extra batting practice. “Usually when you come out after a layoff, you have too much adrenaline,” he said. “I came out here and took a few extra swings so I felt a little more relaxed, so I wasn’t so anxious.”2

Piazza’s batterymate was Al Leiter. The 36-year-old southpaw—he had come to the Mets in a February 1998 trade with the Florida Marlins, three months before another deal with the Marlins brought Piazza to New York—had started the season strong, going 2-1 in his first five starts with a 1.13 ERA.

Leiter was looking for his first win against the Diamondbacks after five years in the National League. In fact, Arizona was the only one of the 30 major-league teams that Leiter had not beaten in 16 big-league seasons. He had especially struggled at Bank One Ballpark, entering the game with a 0-2 record and an 8.71 ERA there. The last time he faced Arizona, he lasted only four innings and gave up five runs in the Mets’ 7-0 loss on August 3, 2001.

Right-hander Rick Helling, Leiter’s Florida teammate in 1996 and 1997,3 started for the Diamondbacks, his sixth start of the young season. Arizona’s offensive explosion in Helling’s three previous starts—34 total runs—gave him a 3-2 record despite a 5.59 ERA. The last time he faced the Mets, as a Marlin in 1997, he lost 6-2.

The Mets jumped on Helling in the first. Roberto Alomar, an offseason free-agent signing who had sparked New York’s offense since being slotted into the leadoff position by Mets manager Bobby Valentine on April 25, led off with a single. Alomar, in the 15th season of a Hall of Fame career, had told Valentine he was willing to play wherever the manager needed him; with Roger Cedeño struggling, Valentine made the move.

In the previous four games, Alomar had batted .357 while scoring four runs. “Hitting leadoff, I’ve been swinging the bat real good,” he had said before the game. “The guys behind me can swing the bat. All I have to do is get some pitches and be aggressive when I need to, take the extra base when I need to, and let the other guys do the job.”4

Mo Vaughn—also signed as a free agent but sidelined for 14 games after breaking his hand when he was hit by a pitch on April 4—singled to put runners at the corners. Piazza then sent Helling’s fourth pitch over the right-center-field wall to put the Mets in front, 3-0.

Valentine said afterward, “It looked like he was making up for lost time. That’s good news for us and hopefully bad news for the opposition.”5

New York added three more runs in the second. Alomar tripled with one out. Cedeño hit a groundball to second baseman Junior Spivey, who threw home. Alomar slid wide and avoided Damian Miller’s tag, scoring the Mets fourth run. .

One out later, Piazza stepped up and hit Helling’s third pitch over the left-field wall for his 321st career homer, giving the Mets a 6-0 lead. It was the 29th multi-home-run game of Piazza’s career and his second of the 2002 season.

Piazza said of his two blasts, “I’m glad I came out early. I was kind of geeked up. I had a lot of energy.” Vaughn added, “As soon as people see Mike Piazza in the lineup, it’s a boost to your team and it puts fear in the other guys.”6

Leiter kept the Diamondbacks scoreless on one hit through the first two innings, and New York continued to hit Helling in the third. After Jay Payton reached on an error, Joe McEwing, starting for the injured Rey Ordoñez at third, hit a home run over the left-field wall.7 It was the 10th home run Helling had given up in first month of the season.

“I’ve got no excuses. I never make any excuses when I pitch bad,” Helling said after the game. “I just didn’t get the job done. It’s completely my fault that we lost tonight and I take full responsibility.”8

After Leiter singled, Brian Anderson replaced Helling. Anderson fared no better, giving up three more singles to bring home Leiter with the Mets’ ninth run.

Piazza then collected his sixth RBI of the game when his groundball to Anderson scored Alomar. New York had a 10-0 lead.

The Diamondbacks scored a run in the third, the result of two errors by the Mets. Craig Counsell reached second when left fielder Cedeño dropped his line drive. Leiter then hit the next two batters to load the bases. Counsell scored when Spivey’s groundball bounced off the heel of Leiter’s glove for an error.

The bases were still loaded, but Luis Gonzalez lined into a double play to end the inning. It was the last time the Diamondbacks would have a runner in scoring position

Arizona put another runner on base in the fourth on McEwing’s throwing error. The Mets’ third error of the game was their 32nd of the season. Arizona got runners on base in the fifth and sixth but failed to score each time.

Leiter left the game after the seventh. He had allowed three hits and one unearned run, lowering his ERA to 0.92. Grant Roberts and Kane Davis combined for two shutout innings in relief to close out the game.

The win gave New York a 16-10 record in April, the Mets’ winningest April in franchise history. (The old record was 15-9 in 2000.) It was the team’s fifth straight victory and their 16 hits were the most in a game so far in the season.

Piazza had one more at-bat after his three-inning RBI spree, flying out in the sixth, before Valentine remove him for a pinch-hitter in the eighth. The six RBIs were Piazza’s most since joining the Mets; he had driven in a career-high seven runs as a Dodger in August 1995. The last Met to have six RBIs in a game was Robin Ventura on April 16, 2000, against the Pirates.

“I thought we played well without Mike,” Valentine told reporters. “But if anyone was delusional to think we were better without him, the medication is coming their way.”9

The early offense and Leiter’s pitching overcame New York’s three errors to keep the Mets in a tie with the Montreal Expos for first place.

“It tells me that talent will always prevail,” said Leiter, referring to the Mets’ errors. “We didn’t play our best baseball, and there’s still talented players in here. It doesn’t hurt to have a staff and the best bullpen in baseball pick up the slack.”10

Leiter’s win made him the first pitcher to beat all 30 teams—team 29 was the Marlins in 1998. It took him 69 wins to get the first 29 teams. He needed another 51 wins to get the Diamondbacks.

“I believe this is the only stadium where I have not won in the major leagues,” he said afterward. “I was joking with the guys and said, ‘I’ve never lost with 10. Get me 10 and I think I can win this one,’ and they did.”11

Leiter, who retired after the 2005 season with 162 career wins, pitched for two National League and two American League teams during his career. He benefited from baseball adding regular-season interleague play in 1997—Leiter beat the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in 1998, while pitching for the Mets—as well as pitching when baseball expanded to 30 teams in 1998. Since Leiter accomplished this feat, 20 other pitchers have done it as of the end of the 2022 season.12

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Bruce Slutsky and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, I used the Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org websites for box-score, player, team, and season pages, pitching and batting game logs, and other material.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/ARI/ARI200204300.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2002/B04300ARI2002.htm

Notes

1 Roger Rubin, “Out Goes Mike,” New York Daily News, April 24, 2002: 54.

2 Bob Baum, “Mets Maul Diamondbacks,” Arizona Daily Sun (Flagstaff, Arizona), May 1, 2002: B1.

3 The Marlins traded Helling to the Texas Rangers for Ed Vosberg on August 12, 1997, gaining veteran bullpen support on their path to the World Series championship.

4 Robert Rubin, “Rob Restores Order to Mets,” New York Daily News, April 30, 2002: 71.

5 Baum.

6 David Lennon, “Piazza Comes Back With Double Blast,” Newsday (Long Island, New York), May 1, 2002: A70.

7 McEwing made Mets history by playing seven different positions that year. He played in 24 games in right field, 20 at first base, 21 at shortstop, 12 at second base, 10 at third base, 10 in left field and one in center field.

8 Baum.

9 Lennon.

10 Rafael Hermoso, “Piazza Announces Return With Authority,” New York Times, May 1, 2002: D3. The Mets held a share of first place as late as May 29 but lost nine of 12 games to start June and fell out of contention. They finished fifth in the NL East with a 75-86 record. Arizona won the NL West with a 98-64 record but lost in the NLDS to the Cardinals.

11 Baum.

12 The last pitcher to accomplish the feat was Gerrit Cole, who made the list when he beat the Houston Astros 1-0 on July 10, 2021. Associated Press, “Yankees’ Cole Demands Ball, Completes 3-Hit Gem vs. Astros,” ESPN.com, July 10, 2021, https://www.espn.com/mlb/recap?gameId=401228391.