July 7, 1993: Expos’ Kirk Rueter takes shutout into 9th inning to win major-league debut

Kirk Rueter admitted that he was “scared to death” when he made his big-league debut for the Montreal Expos on July 7, 1993.1 The 22-year-old soft-tossing southpaw had good reason to be nervous. Rueter was facing the San Francisco Giants, a team that had bolstered its lineup in the offseason with free-agent superstar Barry Bonds to become one of the most feared offensive units in baseball.2 The National League West Division-leading Giants had scored 33 runs in their previous three games.

Despite having less than two full years of professional experience, Rueter limited the Giants to just two singles and three walks in 8 1/3 innings, leading the Expos to a 3-0 victory. As of 2025, it was the best major-league debut for a starting pitcher in the history of the Expos/Nationals franchise.3

Rueter had been selected by Montreal in the 18th round of the June 1991 amateur draft out of Murray State University in Kentucky. He enjoyed a meteoric rise through the Expos’ minor-league system. Rueter’s 1993 stints in Double A and Triple A resulted in a combined 9-2 record and a 1.92 ERA. Perhaps most impressively, he displayed pinpoint control, walking less than one batter per nine innings.

The young Expos team was favored by many to win the NL East Division in 1993,4 but they had played mediocre baseball in the first half. Aside from Ken Hill,5 the performance of the starting rotation had been particularly disappointing. Rueter was called up to replace a struggling Brian Barnes in the rotation,6 making him the 10th starting pitcher used by manager Felipe Alou in the team’s first 85 games.7

The Expos had been outscored 23-9 in the first two games of their three-game set with the Giants, running their losing streak against San Francisco to six games. The losses left them in third place with a 43-40 record, 11½ games behind the first-place Philadelphia Phillies.

San Francisco, on the other hand, had been picked to finish fourth in the NL West by the Associated Press.8 The Giants were coming off a 90-loss season and the addition of Bonds was not expected to turn them into pennant contenders. But career years from second baseman Robby Thompson, starters Bill Swift and John Burkett, and 24-year-old closer Rod Beck had significantly boosted their fortunes.9 The Giants had been in sole possession of first place since May 11, and they came into their series finale with the Expos boasting a 56-28 record and an eight-game lead on the second-place Atlanta Braves.

Rookie manager Dusty Baker tapped Greg Brummett to start for San Francisco. The 26-year-old righty, making his third big-league appearance, had just been recalled from Triple A to replace injured starter Trevor Wilson.10 Brummett had gone 1-1 with a 2.84 ERA for the Giants earlier in the season.11

Rueter’s nervousness was apparent in the first inning. He issued an uncharacteristic leadoff walk to Darren Lewis and a single to the next batter, second baseman Steve Scarsone, who was playing for an injured Thompson.12 Expos catcher Darrin Fletcher had a few words with Rueter, which appeared to calm him down.13 After Rueter struck out Will Clark looking, Bonds grounded to first baseman Frank Bolick.14 The smooth-fielding Rueter covered first,15 receiving the throw in time to get the second out.

With runners on second and third, Rueter faced veteran outfielder Willie McGee, a .336 hitter. Rueter had grown up a St. Louis Cardinals fan in Hoylton, Illinois, just 55 miles from the Gateway City, and McGee was his boyhood hero.16 Rueter struck him out to end the threat.

After Brummett retired the Expos in order in the first inning, Larry Walker led off the second with his 11th home run of the season.

Brummett retired 11 of the next 12 batters he faced and the score remained 1-0 until the sixth. The Expos loaded the bases on a double by third baseman Sean Berry, a single and stolen base by second baseman Delino DeShields, and a walk to rookie utilityman Mike Lansing. With one out, All-Star center fielder Marquis Grissom hit a line drive to center field that was caught by a charging Lewis. Berry tagged up and Lewis’s throw arrived at the plate at the same time as the burly Berry, who bowled over catcher Kirt Manwaring and knocked the ball loose. As Manwaring lay face down and semiconscious, Berry got up and touched home plate, giving the Expos a 2-0 lead.

With the left-handed-hitting Walker coming to the plate and a pair of runners in scoring position, Baker lifted Brummett in favor of Dave Righetti. The veteran southpaw retired Walker on a popup to end the inning.

Meanwhile, Rueter was steamrolling through the Giants lineup, retiring 18 consecutive batters after Scarsone’s first-inning single. The streak was broken when Rueter walked Clark to open the seventh. The next batter, Bonds, slammed a high line drive toward the center-field fence and Grissom, a Gold Glove winner from 1993 to 1996, made a spectacular over-the-shoulder catch at full speed. Rueter escaped the inning by getting McGee, his former idol, to ground into a 6-4-3 double play.

Montreal extended its lead to 3-0 in the bottom of the frame when Moisés Alou slammed his 10th homer of the season off righty Jeff Brantley.

Rueter limited the Giants to Mike Benjamin’s infield single in the eighth and opened the ninth by striking out Lewis, giving him five punchouts in the game.17

Rueter missed the strike zone on a 3-and-2 pitch to Scarsone and the walk brought Felipe Alou out of the dugout. The popular manager called for his star closer, John Wetteland, prompting Expos fans to boo loudly. After 115 pitches, Rueter exited to his fourth standing ovation of the game.

“I wish I could have left him in to complete the game for the fans,” Alou explained later. “But I have a job to do. I have a man with the best stuff in the world to finish the game.”18 Rueter wasn’t upset at receiving the hook. “I knew I was getting tired,” he admitted. “I knew I had to face Will Clark and Barry Bonds. I thought, ‘He can have them.’”19

Wetteland struck out Clark and Bonds – both swinging − to lower his ERA to 1.28 and record his 19th save.

Rueter’s Game Score of 81 was the highest by an Expos hurler in 1993. Between 1901 and 2025, only 19 NL starting pitchers had a better major-league debut than he did.20 Rueter quickly became a fan favorite in Montreal, with the media dubbing him “Captain Kirk.”21

Rueter won six consecutive starts between July 17 and September 14, helping spark a late-season run by Montreal. On August 20 the Expos were in third place with a 64-59 record, 14½ games behind the Phillies. They went 30-9 (.769) the rest of the way and finished in second place, just three games behind Philadelphia.22 It was a clear signal that the Expos were a team to be reckoned with.

Rueter’s season was cut short by a hamstring injury on September 19,23 and he wrapped up his abbreviated rookie campaign with an 8-0 record and a 2.73 ERA in 14 starts. The performance earned him a seventh-place tie with teammate Wil Cordero in NL Rookie of the Year voting.24

Before the 1994 season, the Expos acquired 22-year-old pitcher Pedro Martínez in a trade with the Los Angeles Dodgers, rounding out their juggernaut lineup.25 On August 11, 1994, the Expos had the best record in baseball at 74-40 (.649), but the players strike wiped out the remainder of the regular season and playoffs.26

Rueter won his first two decisions of 1994 to run his career record to 10-0 – narrowly falling short of the NL/AL record of 12 wins without a loss to start a career.27 Shortly after his first career loss, Rueter’s mother, Marjorie, died after a long battle with cancer.28 He missed over three weeks of action and struggled on the mound for the majority of the season.29

Rueter spent most of 1995 with the Triple-A Ottawa Lynx. In his return to the big leagues on August 27, he pitched the best game of his career, a one-hit shutout against the Giants at Stade Olympique.30 “That’s for my mother,” Rueter said after the game. “She was my biggest fan.”31

Rueter pitched reasonably well for the Expos in 1996 until July, when he got knocked around in three consecutive starts. Montreal sent him down to Triple A and on July 30 traded him to the Giants in what was effectively a cost-cutting move.32

Rueter spent the final 10 years of his career in San Francisco, helping the Giants win three division titles and the 2002 NL pennant. As of 2025, Rueter’s 105 career wins with the Giants ranked him seventh in franchise history among left-handed pitchers. He finished his career with a 130-92 mark and a 4.27 ERA.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Kevin Larkin and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com, Stathead.com, and Retrosheet.org. Unless otherwise noted, all detailed play-by-play information was taken from the article “Rueter’s Debut Is a Gem,” in the July 8, 1993, edition of the Montreal Gazette.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/MON/MON199307070.shtml    

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1993/B07070MON1993.htm    

Photo credit

Kirk Rueter, courtesy of Trading Card Database.

Notes

1 Tim Keown, “Rookie Throttles Giants,” San Francisco Chronicle, July 8, 1993: C-1.

2 The Giants scored 808 runs in 1993; the only National League team to score more runs was the Philadelphia Phillies (877).

3 Rueter compiled a Game Score of 81. As of 2025, the second-best major-league debut in franchise history was by the Expos’ Dan Smith, who allowed one earned run on three hits, no walks, and nine strikeouts in seven innings of work against the Boston Red Sox on June 8, 1999. He registered a Game Score of 76. The third highest Game Score in franchise history was 75, shared by the Expos’ Carl Morton on April 11, 1969, against the Chicago Cubs and the Washington Nationals’ Stephen Strasburg on June 8, 2010, against the Pittsburgh Pirates.

4 Jim Donaghy (Associated Press), “National League Races Full of Surprise, Power, Money,” Casper (Wyoming) Star-Tribune, April 4, 1993, D-5; Casey Tefertiller, “Somebody Has to Win East, So Why Not Montreal?” San Francisco Chronicle, April 4, 1993: C-5.

5 Hill was leading the NL with a 2.62 ERA on the morning of July 7. He had been placed on the disabled list on July 3; he returned to action on July 17.

6 Barnes had gone 0-3 with a 6.75 ERA in his three previous starts. He spent the remainder of the season in Montreal’s bullpen. The Expos traded Barnes to the Cleveland Indians in December 1993 to complete a deal for first baseman Randy Milligan.

7 Canadian Press, “Hurler Ends Expos Skid,” Nanaimo (British Columbia) Daily News, July 8, 1993: 7.

8 Donaghy, “National League Races Full of Surprise, Power, Money.”

9 Beck turned 25 on August 3, 1993.

10 Nick Peters, “Martínez Likely Won’t Be Signed,” Santa Rosa (California) Press Democrat, July 6, 1993: C-3.

11 Brummett was traded to the Minnesota Twins on September 1, 1993. He went a combined 4-4 with a 5.08 ERA for the Giants and Twins in 1993, which was his only season in the big leagues.

12 Thompson was pulled from the game on July 4; he returned to action on July 22. Larry Stone, “Thompson’s Leg Getting Worse,” San Francisco Examiner, July 5, 1993: B-4.

13 Ian MacDonald, “Rueter’s Debut Is a Gem,” Montreal Gazette, July 8, 1993: F-1.

14 Montreal used 11 different players at first base in 1993. Greg Colbrunn played 61 games at first, the most of any Expo. Bolick played 51 games at first base and 24 games at third.

15 Research published in the Baseball Research Journal by SABR member John Knox discovered that Rueter was “the most accomplished all-around fielding pitcher in the modern history of baseball, by a considerable margin.” John Knox, “The 100 Top-Fielding MLB Pitchers, circa 1900-2008,” Baseball Research Journal (Summer 2009), https://sabr.org/journal/article/john-a-knox-the-100-top-fielding-mlb-pitchers-circa-1900-2008/, accessed September 25, 2025.

16 McGee was a four-time All-Star and the NL MVP and batting champion in 1985. He played for the Cardinals (1982-90, 1996-99), Oakland Athletics (1990), Giants (1991-94), and Red Sox (1995). Nick Peters, “Montreal Rookie Cools S.F. in Debut,” Fresno (California) Bee, July 8, 1993: D-1.

17 Benjamin was playing third base for an injured Matt Williams. Williams had been out of action since June 27; he returned to the lineup on July 15.

18 MacDonald, “Rueter’s Debut Is a Gem.”

19 MacDonald, “Rueter’s Debut Is a Gem.”

20 Between 1901 and 2025, the highest Game Score by an NL or AL pitcher in his major-league debut was 96 by the Giants’ Juan Marichal on July 19, 1960, against the Phillies.      

21 Ian MacDonald, “Streaking Lynx Ready for Raid,” Montreal Gazette, August 26, 1993: C-3; Jeff Blair, “Rueter to Rescue,” Montreal Gazette, August 7, 1993: C-1.

22 The race for the NL West Division title was transformed when the Braves swept a three-game series from the Giants in San Francisco on August 23-25, reducing the Giants’ lead from 7½ to 4½ games. The Braves and Giants headed into the final day of the season with identical records and Atlanta won the division when it beat the sixth-place Rockies and San Francisco lost to the fourth-place Dodgers. San Francisco missed the playoffs despite finishing with the second-best record in baseball (103-59). The Phillies defeated the Braves in the NLCS in six games. The Toronto Blue Jays won their second consecutive World Series by beating the Phillies in six games.

23 Jeff Blair, “Expos Story,” Montreal Gazette, September 22, 1993: F-2.

24 Future Hall of Famer Mike Piazza easily won the 1993 NL Rookie of the Year Award.

25 The Dodgers traded Martínez to Montreal for Delino Deshields on November 19, 1993. Martínez turned into a Hall of Fame pitcher, while DeShields had a modest career, compiling 24.4 bWAR. Martínez amassed 83.9 bWAR in his career.

26 Unfortunately for Montreal baseball fans, the strike failed to improve the economic conditions for small-revenue teams, so the Expos decided to slash payroll by 35 percent in 1995. The gutting of the Expos roster between April 5 and 8, 1995, was the beginning of the end for the Expos in Montreal. Since the other major-league teams were aware that the Expos had to quickly slash payroll, Montreal was unable to obtain fair market value for any of the players it had to move. Grissom, Hill, and Wetteland were all traded away to contenders at bargain-basement prices. The costliest blow came on April 8, 1995, when future Hall of Famer Walker was signed as a free agent by the Colorado Rockies, and the Expos received nothing in return. The Expos’ winning percentage dropped from .649 in 1994 to .458 in 1995. Many fans never forgave the Expos for completely dismantling the best team in baseball before they had an opportunity to win a World Series. Expos fans suffered the indignity of seeing Walker, Grissom, Hill, and Wetteland all play in the 1995 playoffs for their new teams. Watching Grissom help the rival Braves win the 1995 World Series was a particularly bitter pill to swallow. Gary Belleville, “May 10, 1991: Larry Walker’s first career two-homer game lifts Expos over Padres,” SABR Games Project, https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/may-10-1991-larry-walkers-first-career-two-homer-game-lifts-expos-over-padres, accessed September 24, 2025.

27 The post-1901 NL/AL record of 12 consecutive wins without a loss at the start of a career was first accomplished by Hooks Wiltse of the 1904 New York Giants. The record was equaled by reliever Butch Metzger of the San Francisco Giants and San Diego Padres between 1974 and 1976. As of 2025, the pair still held the record.

28 Jeff Blair, “Lights Out for Rueter,” Montreal Gazette, May 7, 1995: D-1.

29 Rueter went 7-3 with a 5.17 ERA in 1994. As measured by Baseball-Reference Wins Above Replacement (bWAR), it was the worst season of his career until his final campaign in 2005.

30 The only hit surrendered by Rueter was a third-inning single by Manwaring. Rueter walked one and struck out seven in nine shutout innings. The effort resulted in a Game Score of 91.

31 Ian MacDonald, “Expos Story,” Montreal Gazette, August 28, 1995: D-3.

32 Montreal sent 25-year-old Rueter (5-6, 4.58 ERA) and 29-year-old reliever Tim Scott (3-5, 3.11 ERA, 1 save) to the Giants for 33-year-old starter Mark Leiter (4-10, 5.19 ERA). Leiter was a soon-to-be free agent with a $1.5M salary, so the Giants agreed to pay the remainder of his salary. After going 4-2 with a 4.39 ERA with the Expos, Leiter signed with the Philadelphia Phillies in December 1996. Scott had a 1996 salary of $700,000, making him Montreal’s seventh highest paid player. John Shea, “Beck, Dunston Exhale,” Oakland Tribune, August 2, 1996: B-7; “1996 Montreal Expos Roster,” Baseball Almanac, https://www.baseball-almanac.com/teamstats/roster.php?y=1996&t=MON, accessed September 24, 2025.