May 23, 2004: Tom Glavine throws his first one-hitter as Met

The New York Mets were in a middle of an eight-game homestand in May 2004. After being swept by the St. Louis Cardinals in a two-game series, they won the first two games of a weekend series against the Colorado Rockies, outslugging the Rockies with a 9-run, 14-hit attack in the opener and rallying behind Ty Wigginton’s two-run eighth-inning homer a night later. When they took the field at Shea Stadium on May 23, they were 21-22, 3½ games behind the Florida Marlins in the National League East Division.

Colorado was in fourth place in the NL West with a 17-25 record heading into the final game of the series. The Rockies were looking to snap a five-game losing streak. Their lineup was missing its three best hitters: Hall of Fame-bound Todd Helton and Larry Walker and former Met Preston Wilson.1

Tom Glavine started for the Mets. The 38-year-old left-hander had spent the first 17 seasons of his career with the Atlanta Braves before signing with the Mets as a free agent in December 2002. As a Brave, Glavine won two NL Cy Young Awards and was an eight-time All-Star.2 He went 9-14 with a 4.52 ERA in his first season with the Mets, his worst marks since 1988, his second season in the majors.3 Glavine had rebounded for a 5-2 record and a 2.45 ERA through his first nine starts in 2004.4

A crowd of 37,486 showed up on a sunny Sunday afternoon, some lured by giveaway Mets caps on Cap Day. Glavine had a one-two-three first, throwing just 10 pitches to get the side out.

The Mets faced 31-year-old left-hander Shawn Estes. Two seasons earlier, Estes had started 23 games for New York – highlighted by a one-hit shutout of the Milwaukee Brewers – before being traded to the Cincinnati Reds in August.5 For 2004 Estes had signed a nonguaranteed contract with Colorado, then started on Opening Day after pitching well in spring training. Several bad outings had bloated his ERA to 6.31, but he entered the game with a 6-2 record and five quality starts.

Kazuo Matsui led off for the Mets. He was the first Japanese infielder to play in the major leagues after signing with the Mets in December 2002. Matsui hit Estes’ fifth pitch over the left-field wall. It was his second leadoff homer in as many nights and fifth of the season.

Daniel García flied out to right field, but Cliff Floyd homered over the right-field wall, his fourth round-tripper of 2004. After one inning, the Mets were up 2-0. New York added a run in the third when Matsui doubled and scored on a sacrifice and a groundout.

Meanwhile, Glavine was zipping through the Rockies’ lineup, setting down 18 in a row through the sixth inning. He needed just six pitches to get through the fourth inning, and seven for the sixth. Four Rockies struck out during this time.

New York scored another run off Estes in the sixth. Shane Spencer led off with a walk and stole second. With one out, he stole third. After Wigginton struck out, eighth-place hitter Joe McEwing was intentionally walked. This brought up Glavine, who had grounded out in his previous two at-bats. With one strike, the four-time Silver Slugger Award winner singled to left, scoring Spencer to make it 4-0.

Through his six perfect innings, Glavine had just two three-ball counts. Rookie Matt Holliday flied out on a 3-and-2 pitch in the second, and former Met Jeromy Burnitz popped up on a full count in the fifth.

Glavine went 3-and-2 on Denny Hocking to start the seventh, then missed the strike zone to end the perfect game. “I was praying during ‘God Bless America’ (during the seventh-inning stretch) that we would get it done for him, said Mets catcher Jason Phillips. “Once we lost the perfect game, it was ‘OK, let’s get the no-hitter.’”6

Glavine got the next three batters out on a strikeout, pop fly, and a groundout to keep his no-hitter intact through seven innings.

When he returned to the mound in the eighth, the crowd was on its feet and shouting, “Tommy! Tommy!” just as they had done since the fifth inning. “I heard the crowd and there’s no better feeling in sports than to be on the mound and hear that,” said Glavine. “That’s what you come to New York to play for.”7 

The toughest steps seemed to be the first two batters. Burnitz, who hit 315 home runs in a 14-season career, flied out to left field to open the eighth.8 Glavine struck out Holliday – a future batting champion, seven-time All-Star, four-time Silver Slugger Award winner, and lifetime .299 hitter – for the second out.

This brought up Kit Pellow. The 30-year-old Pellow, a righty batter starting against Glavine in Helton’s absence, had appeared in a handful of games with the Kansas City Royals in 2002 and the Rockies in 2003 and 2004. Several strong seasons in Japan and Mexico were in his future, including a Mexican League Triple Crown in 2008. He had struck out and grounded out in his previous two at-bats.

On Glavine’s 96th pitch, Pellow hit an opposite-field double off the right-field wall to end the no-hit bid. Right fielder Spencer said he would’ve had to “jump 25 feet” to catch the ball.9 Glavine said afterward that he had told Phillips, his catcher, before the game that he was worried by Pellow because of his strong swings at outside pitches.

“I bounced the first pitch trying to avoid contact. I was trying not to get caught up in thinking about [the no-hitter], but I did,” said Glavine. “So I thought, ‘This is stupid’ and went back to being aggressive in the strike zone.”10

“I was thinking about the no-hitter. I was caught up in it like the fans,” said Phillips. “It was exciting, then it was depressing. After the hit, it was anticlimactic. I felt bad for him.”11

Pellow was asked how it felt to get the hit that broke up the no-hitter. “It’s OK when you do that but you wish it wouldn’t get to that,” he said. “You’d like to string four or five [hits] together. It just didn’t happen. We couldn’t get him out of his rhythm.”12

Glavine did not let the hit rattle him. He struck out René Reyes to end the frame and then returned in the ninth. Glavine had thrown 100 pitches through the eighth and needed just 13 more to earn a complete-game victory. The win was Glavine’s first shutout and complete game as a Met. It was his 257th career win.

“I’ve never really paid attention to my age as much as I pay attention to my body,” said Glavine after the game. “And I think I’ve proved to people I have a lot left in the tank.”13

Colorado’s loss was its seventh in a row at Shea Stadium.14 Manager Clint Hurdle, who had argued with home-plate umpire Larry Vanover during the game over his strike zone, complimented Glavine. “He carved us up. His track record speaks for itself,” Hurdle said. “He’s one of the elite pitchers in the game.”15 He continued, “Our young pitchers should watch this and benefit from it. You don’t have to blow up a radar gun to be successful.”16

The one-hitter was the 27th in Mets history and their 22nd complete-game one-hitter. They had one-hit the Rockies at Shea Stadium for the second straight season; Steve Trachsel had pitched a one-hit shutout against Colorado in August 2003.

It was the furthest into a game Glavine had taken a no-hitter. He had gone into the seventh with a no-hit shot against the San Diego Padres on August 12, 1989, before giving up a one-out home run to Chris James.

“Today was my best day as a Met. It was just one of those days where I had good stuff, good location and I was changing speeds,” said Glavine.17 The win gave him a 6-2 record with a 2.13 ERA.

Glavine finished the 2004 season with an 11-14 record and a 3.60 ERA. He played five years with the Mets and ended with a 61-56 record. Glavine also was an All-Star twice during his tenure, in 2004 and 2006.

He pitched a second one-hitter against the Cardinals on June 27, 2007. He gave up a single to fellow future Hall of Famer Scott Rolen in the second inning. New York was ahead 2-0 when the game ended due to rain after 5½ innings. Glavine got the win.

Glavine’s one-hitter against the Rockies gave the Mets a three-game sweep and brought their season record to .500. New York was 8-3 in its past 11 games and just three games out of first. The Mets stayed in contention up to the All-Star break. But after going 5-11 in the second half of July and 21-37 through the final two months of the season, they finished fourth in the NL East, 25 games behind the Atlanta Braves.18

Acknowledgments

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

Photo credit: Tom Glavine, Trading Card Database.

Sources

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

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYN/NYN200405230.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2004/B05230NYN2004.htm

Notes

1 Helton was resting because of a persistent hip injury that had limited his playing time since 1998. Walker was on the injured list with a strained groin. Wilson was out with a knee injury.

2 Glavine re-signed with the Braves for the 2008 season and went 2-4 with a 5.54 ERA before he was injured and missed the rest of the season. In 2009, he made four starts in the minor leagues, but he was released by the team on June 3.

3 In his first full major-league season after debuting in August 1987, Glavine went 7-17 with a 4.56 ERA for a last-place Braves team in 1988. His breakthrough season was 1991, when he won 20 games for the first time and received the NL Cy Young Award.

4 Glavine had gone 5-5 with a 4.28 ERA during the first two months of the 2003 season.

5 Estes was traded with cash to the Reds on August 15, 2002, for three players to be named later. The Reds eventually sent Elvin Beltre, Pedro Feliciano, Raúl González, and Brady Clark to complete the trade.

6 Peter Botte, “Jason Catches Thrill,” New York Daily News, May 24, 2004: 59.

7 Bob Herzog, “Glavine Painting Like Genius,” Newsday (Long Island, New York), May 24, 2004: A58.

8 Burnitz was another former Met on the Rockies. Burnitz played in New York in 2002 and 2003 until he was traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers on July 14, 2003, for Kole Strayhorn, Jose Díaz, and Víctor Díaz.

9 Christian Red, “This Fine Pellow Breaks Up No-No,” New York Daily News, May 24, 2004: 59.

10 Bob Herzog, “Pellow Joins List of No-Name Heartbreakers in Mets Lore,” Newsday, May 24, 2004: A59.

11 Bob Herzog, “Glavine Painting Like Genius.”

12 Bob Herzog, “Pellow Joins List of No-Name Heartbreakers in Mets Lore.”

13 Peter Botte, “Glavine Mets One-Hit Wonder,” New York Daily News, May 24, 2004: 56.

14 Colorado eventually won a game at Shea Stadium on October 2, 2005, after losing 10 straight there.

15 Christian Red, “This Fine Pellow Breaks Up No-No.”

16 “Pellow Joins List of No-Name Heartbreakers in Mets Lore.”

17 Bob Herzog, “Glavine Painting Like Genius,” Newsday, May 24, 2004: A58.

18 Manager Art Howe was fired after the season and Yankees coach Willie Randolph became the manager for 2005.