May 11, 1996: Al Leiter throws Marlins’ first no-hitter

The Florida Marlins were in their fourth season in 1996. Their record had improved each year since they joined the National League as an expansion franchise in 1993, and they hoped a series of free-agent signings in the 1995-96 offseason would make them, according to general manager Dave Dombrowski, a playoff contender.1 Veteran starters Kevin Brown of the Texas Rangers and Al Leiter of the Toronto Blue Jays had signed to bolster the rotation,2 and Toronto’s Devon White, a seven-time Gold Glove center fielder, was added to a lineup led by right fielder Gary Sheffield, third baseman Terry Pendleton, and left fielder Jeff Conine.

Florida, however, struggled early in the season. A three-game road sweep by their fellow 1993 expansion club, the Colorado Rockies, gave the Marlins an NL-worst 11-21 record on May 5. But five straight home-field wins—three over the New York Mets and two more to start a four-game rematch series with the Rockies—had the Marlins on an upswing heading into their Saturday night game against Colorado on May 11.

Like the Marlins, the Rockies had improved each year since their debut. They finished second in the NL West Division in 1995, earning the league’s wild-card spot while leading the NL in batting average, home runs, and RBIs. When the Marlins visited Coors Field earlier in May, the Blake Street Bombers3 had blitzed them for 31 runs on 43 hits in three games.

But despite a formidable offense, the Rockies were also off to a slow start. They arrived in Florida after being swept in a three-game series by the Atlanta Braves, who had defeated them in the previous season’s NL Division Series before winning the World Series. The two losses to the Marlins dropped the Rockies’ record to 15-19, last in their division.

Leiter started the third game of the series on a warm evening. He entered the game with a 5-2 record and a 2.80 ERA. The 30-year-old left-hander retired the Rockies on just 10 pitches in the first inning.

The Marlins came to bat against 25-year-old right-hander Mark Thompson. Thompson had spent most of the 1995 season in the Rockies’ bullpen, finishing the season with a 6.53 ERA. Colorado had moved him into the starting rotation in 1996 and he entered the game with 2-2 record and a 2.78 ERA.

With one out, Alex Arias and Greg Colbrunn singled off Thompson. Walks to Sheffield and Conine sent Arias home. Pendleton singled in two more runs. Charles Johnson then sent Thompson’s second pitch over the center-field fence for his second home run of the series, making the score 6-0.

Craig Grebeck singled and Leiter sacrificed him to second. On his 39th pitch of the inning, Thompson got White to ground out to end the frame.

After the long bottom of the first, Leiter walked Andres Galarraga to start the second. He then hit Ellis Burks with a pitch, and third baseman Pendleton walked to the mound to speak with Leiter. “I told him to relax and pitch. He comes out in the second inning with a six-run lead and says, ‘Let’s just pitch strikes.’ I told him, ‘You’ve got to pitch like it’s a one-run game.”4 Leiter struck out Vinny Castilla and got Trent Hubbard to hit into a 6-4-3 double play.

When Leiter returned to the dugout, Marlins pitching coach Larry Rothschild pulled him aside and asked him if he was all right. “The first three innings, he was in a little fog. He needed to snap out of it,” said Rothschild later.5

Florida added to its lead in the second. Colbrunn’s single and Sheffield’s walk brought up Conine. He hit Thompson’s third pitch to the center-field wall for a double, driving in both runners to push the score to 8-0.

Rockies manager Don Baylor brought in veteran right-hander John Habyan. Habyan cooled off the Marlins’ attack, retiring seven straight batters. In 3⅔ innings, the only run he allowed was a home run by Pendleton to lead off the fifth, which made it 9-0.

In the meantime, Leiter continued to shut down the Rockies. He walked the first batter in the third and then retired Colorado quickly through the next four innings. His no-hitter was kept alive with shortstop Arias’s sharp play on Burks’ slow grounder in the fifth. Arias’s view was momentarily blocked by third baseman Pendleton’s attempt to make the play, but he recovered, fielded the ball, and fired to first in time to nip the speedy Burks.

The Marlins added two more in the sixth off Mike Munoz. Colbrunn singled with one out and Munoz walked the next two batters. Pendleton’s single brought two runners home to give the Marlins an 11-0 lead. It was the most runs the Marlins had scored in a game so far in the season.

Colorado’s Walt Weiss led off the seventh with a grounder down the third-base line that just rolled foul. Then he fouled out with catcher Johnson making the catch against the backstop. Leiter struck out Dante Bichette and Galarraga to end the frame, his fourth straight clean inning.

The Miami Herald noted that “Leiter acted like he always does: He prowled the dugout between innings, chattering to teammates.”6 Leiter’s demeanor seemed to take his teammates’ mind off the no-hitter. “In the seventh, we came off and I said, ‘What the heck is everyone cheering about?’” said Pendleton. “I really didn’t know.”7

Leiter, when asked if he was nervous about the no-hitter, said, “My body language wasn’t showing you, but I didn’t expect anything.” Marlins manager Rene Lachemann said afterward, “I was going to take him out if he didn’t have a no-hitter going. He’s always been a top-step guy. A guy that keeps you on the top step of the dugout.”8

After Leiter retired 14 consecutive batters, he came to bat in the bottom of the seventh. Leiter struck out looking and received an ovation from the crowd of 31,549.9

Leiter got “better with every batter, and he got an ovation for striking out in the seventh.”10

It took just three pitches to put the Rockies away in the eighth. Burks grounded to second. Castilla flied out to deep center field. Leiter fielded the third out when Jason Bates, hitting for Munoz, popped up in front of home plate. Leiter called everyone off and ended up making a “Willie Mays catch,” wrote Scott Tolley in the Palm Beach Post.11

When Leiter went out to the mound in the ninth, with his pitch count at 94, the crowd at Joe Robbie Stadium was on its feet. First baseman Colbrunn “was thinking, ‘I’ll dive. I’ll slide. Whatever it takes,’” as he headed out onto the field.12 He got his chance when leadoff batter Jayhawk Owens grounded Leiter’s first pitch right to Colbrunn, who ran to first for an easy out.

Quinton McCracken then hit a sharp grounder up the middle. Second baseman Grebeck reached the ball and made the throw for the second out.

Leiter was down to the final out and the crowd was standing and hanging on every pitch. He went to a full count on Eric Young before striking him out for his sixth of the game.

“Leiter staggered into Johnson’s bear hug and then disappeared beneath a mass of Marlins,” wrote the Miami Herald’s Gregg Doyel.13 When Leiter emerged from the pile, he tipped his cap to the fans.

Leiter later complimented his teammate’s defense: “That ball was well hit. Everything came together. We had great defense all around, a great connection between me and Johnson. Everything clicked.”14 The closest he had come to a no-hitter was on May 24, 1988. Leiter was pitching for the New York Yankees and lost his no-hitter in the sixth when California’s Wally Joyner singled.

Leiter’s no-hitter was the first in Marlins history. Pat Rapp had pitched a one-hitter for the Marlins in 1995, also against the Rockies. It was also the first major-league no-hitter of 1996 and the first for a left-hander since Kenny Rogers’ perfect game on July 28, 1994.15

“What an awesome scenario. We won five in a row coming in, and to pitch a no-hitter is an even bigger uplift. I’ve never been part of a no-hitter,” said Johnson. Sheffield added: “We didn’t need 11 but we got it. This overshadows everything. When you win, it’s everything. It brings fans. It brings interest.”16

Leiter’s next start came against the Chicago Cubs, and he later recalled the press following him because of the “Johnny Vander Meer thing,” a reference to the only major-league pitcher to have thrown no-hitters in consecutive starts.17 Leiter threw five shutout innings before giving up two runs in the sixth, but Leo Gomez’s single in the second inning ended any hopes of a second straight no-hitter.18

Florida finished 80-82 in 1996, third in the NL East Division. In 1997 the Marlins made the playoffs as the league’s wild card and went on to win the World Series, beating the Cleveland Indians in seven games.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Bill Marston and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

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

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/FLO/FLO199605110.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1996/B05110FLO1996.htm

Notes

1 Mike Phillips, “Brown Goes to Marlins,” Miami Herald, December 23, 1995: D1. Florida had losing records in its first three years but moved up from sixth in the division in 1993 to fourth in 1995.

2 Leiter was signed on December 14, 1995, and Brown was signed on December 22.

3 Coors Field is at 2001 Blake Street in Denver. At 5,200 feet, it has the highest elevation of any major-league ballpark. At that altitude, the atmospheric pressure ­– and resistance to a batted ball—is about 20 percent less than at sea level.

4 Scott Tolley, “Nervous Hands Helped No-Hitter,” Palm Beach Post, May 12, 1996: C9.

5 “Nervous Hands Helped No-Hitter.”

6 Gregg Doyel, “No Runs, No Hits, One Hero,” Miami Herald, May 12, 1996: 1D.

7 “Nervous Hands Helped No-Hitter.”

8 Scott Tolley, “Leiter No-Hits Rockies,” Palm Beach Post, May 12, 1996: C1.

9 “No Runs, No Hits, One Hero.”

10 “No Runs, No Hits, One Hero.”

11 “Nervous Hands Helped No-Hitter.”

12 Greg Doyel, “No Hits, Many High Fives,” Miami Herald, May 12, 1996: 6D.

13 “No Runs, No Hits, One Hero.”

14 “No Runs, No Hits, One Hero.”

15 It was the first no-hitter against the Rockies. Four months later, on September 17, Hideo Nomo of the Los Angeles Dodgers no-hit the Rockies at Coors Field. As of 2023, the only other no-hitter against the Rockies was pitched by Clayton Kershaw of the Dodgers in June 2014. “No-Hitters vs. the Colorado Rockies,” NoNoHitters.com, accessed August 31, 2023, https://www.nonohitters.com/no-hitters-vs-the-colorado-rockies/.

16 Tolley, “Leiter No-Hits Rockies.”

17 Leiter has been an analyst for the YES network, ESPN, Fox Sports, and the MLB Network since retiring as a player. He reflected on his no-hitter on MLB Tonight on May 21, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICniu3T1Bio&ab_channel=MLBNetwork.

18 Brown recorded the Marlins’ second no-hitter on June 10, 1997, against the San Francisco Giants.