July 14, 2001: Glendon Rusch, Armando Benítez combine for 1-hitter as Mets beat Boston

The New York Mets won the National League crown in 2000, the second consecutive year they had made the postseason under manager Bobby Valentine’s leadership. After losing to the New York Yankees in the first “Subway Series” since the 1950s, the 2001 Mets aimed to end the Atlanta Braves’ six-season hold on the NL East Division title and repeat as NL pennant-winners for the first time in the franchise’s 40-season history.1

But New York struggled through the first half of the 2001 season. The team did not make any significant free-agent signings and several of the key players from the 2000 team were not producing as well offensively.2 Second baseman Edgardo Alfonzo – a Silver Slugger Award winner in 1999 and an All-Star in 2000 – was hitting only .233 with 9 home runs at the All-Star break.3 Third baseman Robin Ventura looked as if he might rebound from a poor 2001 season (.232 batting average) when he was hitting .294 with 13 homers through June 12, but he hit just .183 over the next month.

Valentine had received a lot of criticism from fans and the press as the team struggled. He told reporters it had been one of his most difficult seasons as a manager. When Valentine posted his lineup on July 14, for the final game of the Mets’ three-game series with the Boston Red Sox after the All-Star break, it had just two starters from Opening Day – Ventura and Alfonzo. He was asked why he was using so many reserves. Valentine said that the “lack of offense” was the reason for resting his usual starters.4

The Mets were 39-51, in fourth place in the NL East Division, when the Red Sox arrived at Shea Stadium. On July 12 the Mets took the opener, 4-2, behind Al Leiter’s pitching. The next night Boston won, 3-1, with former Met David Cone getting the win.

The Red Sox were 51-36, just 1½ games behind the Yankees in the American League East Division. They had lost two of three games against Atlanta before the All-Star break.

Glendon Rusch started for New York in Saturday afternoon’s series finale. The Mets had picked him up in a trade with the Kanas City Royals in 1999. Rusch started 30 games for the Mets in 2000, finishing with an 11-11 record. He was 4-5 with a 5.00 ERA when he took the mound against the Red Sox. Rusch had pitched 5⅔ no-hit innings against the Yankees on July 8 but received a no-decision after giving up a game-tying home run to Derek Jeter as the Mets dropped two of three games at Yankee Stadium.

There were rumors that New York might trade Rusch for a hitter to help its offense. Marty Noble of Newsday quoted a teammate saying, “Trade him? Where you gonna get a 26-year-old lefthander who can pitch?”5

Rusch struck out the leadoff batter, second baseman José Offerman. Chris Stynes hit a grounder to shortstop Desi Relaford, but Lenny Harris, starting just his fourth game of the season at first, couldn’t handle the throw and Stynes reached on his error.

Trot Nixon laid down a bunt toward first base. Nixon later explained his bunt: “My basic thought was, I had never faced Rusch before and I wanted to get [Manny Ramírez] to the plate.”6

Harris picked up the ball and threw to Alfonzo covering first. Alfonzo tagged the base with his foot but collided with Nixon and dropped the ball. Nixon was credited with a single, and Stynes went to third on the play.

The official scorer awarded Nixon a hit because “the runner beat the throw to first base and the second baseman was a step or two off before trying to get the ball,” according to Newsday.7 Harris was charged with his second error of the inning on Stynes’ advance to third.

Ramírez – who had hit his 27th homer of the season in the previous night’s game – hit a line drive that Alfonzo caught behind second base for the second out, and Rusch struck out Dante Bichette to end the frame.

Nixon’s hit was Boston’s last of the game. The Red Sox hit just five balls out of the infield over the next eight innings. Rusch struck out 10 batters, his high in 2001, before he left after eight innings and 117 pitches.

Rusch faced 35-year-old Cuban right-hander Rolando Arrojo, who entered the game with a 2-2 record and a 3.56 ERA.8 Arrojo had spent most of the year in the Red Sox bullpen and the start was just his fourth of the season. Red Sox manager Terry Francona added him to the rotation after Pedro Martínez went out with an injury.9 Arrojo had faced the Mets twice in his career and failed to get a win either time.10

The Mets gave Rusch all the support he needed when left fielder Mark Johnson led off the Mets’ second with a solo home run over the right-field wall. It was the former Dartmouth College quarterback’s third homer of the season. “He was the first batter of the inning and I didn’t want to walk [him],” said Arrojo after the game. “So I threw a fastball right in the middle.”

Johnson, who was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, said it was a “big thrill to play the Sox” and hit a home run against them.11

After Johnson’s homer, Arrojo matched Rusch over the next five innings, retiring the next 15 Mets batters he faced.

Relaford snapped Arrojo’s perfect string by leading off the seventh with a double to center field. Ventura’s groundout to first moved Relaford to third. Johnson then hit a groundball up the middle. With Relaford running on contact, Offerman’s only play was to first, and Relaford scored the Mets’ second run.

Arrojo gave up a single to Harris and walked Alfonzo before getting Timo Pérez to ground out to end the inning.

The Mets had another opportunity to score in the eighth after Sun-Woo Kim relieved Arrojo. Backup catcher Vance Wilson led off with a single and Kim walked Mike Piazza, pinch-hitting for Rusch. Joe McEwing’s sacrifice moved the runners up. After Wilson took a big lead off third and was caught in a rundown, Relaford singled to put runners at the corners. But Kim struck out Ventura to end the Mets’ threat.

Armando Benítez came in to pitch the ninth for the Mets. He got Offerman to ground out to first before striking out Stynes and Nixon to end the game. It was Benítez’s 20th save of the season.

Nixon’s bunt single left Rusch and Benítez with the 21st one-hitter in Mets history and the first since one by David Cone on September 20, 1991. To that point, no pitcher in franchise history had ever thrown a no-hitter.12

After the game the Mets debated the first-inning play. Valentine said Rusch should have gotten the ball on Nixon’s bunt. “I fall almost to the other side of the mound. And I’m slow, too,” said Rusch, explaining why he didn’t get the ball.13 Alfonzo said the play might have taken a different turn if regular first baseman Zeile had been playing. “Then I can catch it and slide for the base. But I think Lenny was looking for Glendon,” said Alfonzo.

Harris said he should have gotten to the ball instead of Rusch. “If Glendon gets over, he gets the out. But he’s left-handed. If he doesn’t fall off, his pitches might not be as good and he’ll give up 10 hits.”14

The win was Valentine’s 1,000th in 14 years a manager.15 It also kept the Mets from falling to the NL East cellar. “A win’s a win. I’ll take one any way I can get it,” Valentine said when asked if the victory was special.16

New York improved in the second half of the 2001 season. They were 7-2 in September before the 9/11 attacks. When play resumed on September 17, the Mets had three games in Pittsburgh before returning home on September 21 where Piazza’s home run led them to a win over Atlanta. After going 18-9 in September and October, New York finished 82-80, third in the NL East.

Rusch finished the season with an 8-12 record and a 4.63 ERA. The Mets traded him in January 2002 in a multiteam trade designed to add more offense to their lineup.17

Boston struggled in the second half of the 2001 season, going 22-34 down the stretch and eventually finishing 13½ games behind the Yankees in the AL East.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Madison McEntire and copy-edited by Len Levin. The author thanks John Fredland for his encouragement and recommendations.

Photo credit: Glendon Rusch, Trading Card Database.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author used the Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org websites for the box score and other material.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYN/NYN200107140.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2001/B07140NYN2001.htm

Notes

1 Atlanta won three straight NL West Division titles before the divisions were reorganized after the 1993 season. The Braves were in second place, six games behind the Montreal Expos in the reconstituted NL East, when a players’ strike ended the 1994 season, and they won the NL East every season from 1995 through 2005.

2 The Mets made no moves to sign any of the big-name free agents after the 2000 season. Manny Ramírez (who signed with the Boston Red Sox after eight seasons with the Cleveland Indians) and Álex Rodríguez (who signed with the Texas Rangers after seven season with the Seattle Mariners) were available to add some offense to their lineup. Mike Mussina (who signed with the Yankees after 10 seasons with the Baltimore Orioles) was also a free agent and could have improved their rotation.

3 Alfonzo had batted .324 with 25 home runs in 2000.

4 Vic Ziegel, “Bobby V Has One Thousand Reasons to Be Happy,” New York Daily News, July 15, 2001: 45. Piazza, who had batted .324 in 2000, was hitting .277. Todd Zeile, who had hit at least 22 homers in four of the past five seasons, had only six home runs by July 14. Outfielders Jay Payton and Benny Agbayani spent time on the disabled list and were struggling offensively. Payton was hitting .249, down from .291 the previous season. Agbayani had 4 home runs and 17 RBIs at the All-Star break, down from 15 homers with 60 RBIs a year earlier.

5 Marty Noble, “One Hit Wonder,” Newsday (Long Island, New York), July 15, 2001: C4.

6 Bob Hohler, “His Is the Lone Hit in a Loss to Rusch, Mets,” Boston Globe, July 15, 2001: C1.

7 Noble, “One Hit Wonder.”

8 Arrojo turned 36 on July 18.

9 Martinez went on the DL on June 27 with soreness in his shoulder. The injury was later diagnosed as a torn rotator cuff. Martinez pitched just three more times after his June 26 start.

10 Arrojo went five innings in a start for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in 1999 and gave up three earned runs in an 8-7 loss. He pitched six innings when he was with the Colorado Rockies in 2000, giving up two runs and picking up the loss in the Mets’ 4-2 win.

11 Hohler, “His Is the Lone Hit in a Loss to Rusch, Mets.”

12 The first no-hitter in Mets history was thrown by Johan Santana on June 1, 2012, against the St. Louis Cardinals.

13 Gordon Edes, “Opposition Bats the Victim of a Rusch Job,” Boston Globe, July 15, 2001: C12.

14 Noble, “One Hit Wonder.”

15 Valentine managed the Texas Rangers from 1985 to 1992, the Mets from 1996 to 2002, and the Red Sox in 2012.

16 Ziegel, “Bobby V Has One Thousand Reasons to Be Happy.”

17 New York finished 2001 with a .249 team batting average and .710 team OPS. Both were second lowest in the National League. The Mets sent Rusch and Harris to the Brewers and Benny Agbayani, Zeile, and cash to the Colorado Rockies. Colorado sent Ross Gload and Craig House to the Mets and Alex Ochoa to the Brewers. The Brewers sent Jeromy Burnitz, Lou Collier, Jeff D’Amico, Mark Sweeney and cash to the Mets.