September 10, 1991: Rookie Pete Schourek’s 1-hitter leads Mets past Expos

After finishing July 1991 in second place in the National League East Division, the New York Mets went 8-21 in August and fell to fourth. Things didn’t improve in September, as they lost five in a row from September 4 to 9, including the opener of a two-game home series with the last-place Montreal Expos. Adding to the Mets’ challenges were injuries to starters Dwight Gooden and Sid Fernandez.1

Montreal’s 4-3 win over the Mets on September 9 gave the Expos nine wins in 10 games. Despite the late surge, Montreal was still mired in the NL East cellar after going 9-19 in August.2

A season-low 9,882 showed up at Shea Stadium on September 10 for the second game of the Mets-Expos series.3  

With the pitching staff depleted, Mets manager Bud Harrelson sent 22-year-old left-hander Pete Schourek to the mound. Taken in the second round of the June 1987 amateur draft, the 6-foot-5 Schourek had started the 1991 season with the Mets after spending most of 1990 in Double A. The start was just his fourth in 30 major-league appearances, mostly as a middle reliever.

Schourek had lasted less than two innings in his previous start, against the Cincinnati Reds on August 31, and Newsday’s Bob Glauber wrote that he “entered the [Montreal] game with three career starts, a 5.65 ERA and a crisis of confidence.”4

With the Mets possibly losing starter Frank Viola to free agency,5 the New York Daily News observed, “Schourek knows management’s eyes are upon him as never before.” Schourek noted this when he said after the game: “The opportunity is right there in front of your face, and if you can’t get a good outing, open some eyes and impress people, that’s going to bother you.”6

The Expos were on their way to finishing last in the NL in runs scored, and left fielder Ivan Cálderon, their best hitter, was sidelined with a sore elbow. Still, their lineup featured younger talent like 22-year-old second baseman Delino DeShields, 24-year-old center fielder Marquis Grissom, and 24-year-old right fielder Larry Walker. Schourek breezed through the first four innings, striking out five batters and retiring all 12 batters he faced.

Right-hander Mark Gardner was on the mound for Montreal. The 29-year-old had faced the Mets twice earlier in the season and lost both games. He entered with an 8-9 record and a 3.04 ERA.7

After Gardner retired the side in order in the first, Howard Johnson led off the Mets’ half of the second with a double, his 27th of the season. Two walks loaded the bases, but Gardner got out of the jam by striking out Schourek for the third out.

The Mets broke through in the third. Shortstop Jeff Gardner,8 who had been called up from the Mets’ Triple-A Tidewater team the previous day, singled with one out for his first major-league hit. Gregg Jefferies’ single moved him to second. Johnson then hit a home run over the right-center-field wall. His league-leading 33rd homer and 96th, 97th, and 98th RBIs of the season gave New York a 3-0 lead.9

 Schourek began the fifth by setting down Tim Wallach and Walker, making it 14 outs in a row. But Andres Galarraga walked on a 3-and-1 pitch and Ken Williams – filling in for Calderon in left – hit a two-out single through the hole between shortstop and third.10 Schourek escaped the jam by getting Gil Reyes on a fly ball to center field. Schourek said of the 1-and-2 pitch that Williams hit, “It was the pitch I wanted to throw, but I hung it a little bit, and he did a good job getting his head out, and pulling it into the hole.”11

Another three-run homer, by Mackey Sasser, gave the Mets a comfortable lead in the fifth. Walks to Jeff Gardner and Johnson put two runners on base with one out for Sasser, who hit his fifth home run of the season to push the Mets’ lead to six runs.

Schourek gave up his second walk of the game to DeShields in the sixth. DeShields moved to second on a wild pitch. But Schourek retired the next two batters to maintain his shutout. The Expos had another chance for a hit in the seventh when Wallach’s fly ball looked as if it might land in the outfield. But first baseman Chris Donnels, who was playing in his first major-league game for the injured Dave Magadan, caught the ball in foul territory with his back to home plate.

The Mets added to their lead in the seventh against left-hander Scott Ruskin. Sasser led off with a single. One out later, Daryl Boston’s double put both runners in scoring position; Ruskin then hit Todd Hundley to load the bases. This brought up Schourek, who doubled to bring home Sasser and Boston. The Mets now led 8-0.

Schourek got the Expos out on nine pitches in the eighth. Johnson scored the ninth Mets’ run in the bottom of the inning by hitting a single off Doug Piatt, then coming home on Sasser’s single down the left-field line and Ken Williams’s throwing error.

Schourek took a nine-run lead into the ninth. He got Nelson Santovenia on a foul pop to first. Spike Owen struck out. When Grissom flied out to right field, Schourek had his third major-league win.

The Mets’ win snapped a five-game losing streak in which they had been outscored by 16 runs. “It’s amazing. We struggle and struggle and then we get a one-hitter and 11 hits all in one game,” said Harrelson afterward.12

In the Mets’ 30th season of existence, the team still had not had a no-hitter; Schourek’s one-hitter was the franchise’s 18th.13 David Cone had thrown the last one-hitter, against San Diego on August 29, 1988.14 Dwight Gooden was the last Mets rookie to throw a one-hitter, on September 7, 1984, against Chicago.15

Schourek said Williams’s hit allowed him to concentrate on winning the game.

“I was thinking no-hitter throughout the game,” he said,16 adding, “I was actually relieved when he got the hit, because then I was able to relax and concentrate on winning the game.”17

“I had to take this opportunity at being a stopper and make the most of it. I had the chance a couple of times earlier in the year and I let it slip through my hands,” Schourek said. “I was starting to get a little concerned. The opportunity was there to get a good outing and open up some eyes.”18

It was the first complete-game victory by a Mets starter since July 29.19 Harrelson, who had expressed concern about the Mets’ starting pitching, was pleased with Schourek’s outing. “This turned out to be a laugher, something we haven’t had since June,” he said. “You wouldn’t anticipate [Schourek] to have a one-hitter or a complete game or shutout. He had a good fastball with a lot of movement and showed great composure.”20

Hundley, who had caught Schourek in the minors, complimented him. “I caught him for three years in the minors, so he didn’t do anything that I haven’t seen before,” Hundley said. “He was the type of pitcher he was today all year [at Double-A Jackson in 1990].21 Usually when he gets tired, he loses something on his fastball. Today, he didn’t lose anything on his fastball; he kept it going for nine innings.”22

Schourek called the game “my chance to do something for next year.”23 He did earn a spot in the Mets starting rotation in 1992. He started 21 games and finished with a 6-8 record and a 3.64 ERA.24

The win gave New York a 12-2 record against Montreal. A week later, on September 17, the two teams split a doubleheader at Shea Stadium; the games were moved from Montreal because a 55-ton slab of concrete fell from the side of Olympic Stadium on September 13. The 13-3 record was the Mets’ best finish against the Expos since 1969, when they went 13-5.

New York continued to struggle, going 12-15 in September. The Mets eventually finished fifth in the NL East, 20½ games behind the division-winning Pittsburgh Pirates. Harrelson was fired on September 28 at the end of a “bitterly disappointing season,” according to the Mets’ new general manager, Al Harazin.25 Third-base coach Mike Cubbage replaced him for the final seven games of the season.

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, the author used the Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org websites for the box score; player, team, and season pages; pitching and batting logs; and other material.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYN/NYN199109100.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1991/B09100NYN1991.htm

Notes

1 Gooden had surgery on September 8 to repair the rotator cuff and torn cartilage in his right shoulder. Fernandez broke his wrist in spring training. He returned in July but returned to the injured list with knee problems at the end of August.

2 Montreal manager Buck Rodgers had been fired in June and replaced by 36-year-old Tom Runnells. Runnells stayed as manager when the 1992 season began but was replaced by Felipe Alou after 37 games.

3 It was the lowest attendance at a Mets home game since 5,251 showed up against the Phillies on September 26, 1984.

4 Bob Glauber, “1 Hit, For Pete’s Sake,” Newsday (Long Island, New York), September 11, 1991: 149.

5 Viola left New York after the season and signed a three-year, $13.9 million contract with the Boston Red Sox.

6 Howard Blatt, “Schourek Pitches 1-Hitter,” New York Daily News, September 11, 1991: 58.

7 Earlier in the 1991 season, on July 26, Montreal’s Gardner had pitched nine no-hit innings against the Los Angeles Dodgers, but the game went into extra innings as a scoreless tie. Los Angeles won in the bottom of the 10th with two singles off Gardner and Darryl Strawberry’s walk-off RBI single against reliever Jeff Fassero.

8 Jeff Gardner and Mark Gardner were not related.

9 Johnson eventually finished with 38 home runs and 117 RBIs for the National League titles in both categories. The homers were one short of the Mets team record of 39 by Darryl Strawberry in 1988.

10 It was the final season of Williams’s six-year major-league playing career. He was the general manager of the Chicago White Sox from 2000 through 2012 and was executive vice president of the White Sox until 2023.

11 Blatt, “Schourek Pitches 1-Hitter.”

12 Kevin Czerwinski, “Ahead to the Future,” White Plains (New York) Journal News, September 11, 1991: D1.

13 Johan Santana pitched the first no-hitter in Mets’ history in 2012.

14 Four days after Schourek’s one-hitter, on September 14, Cone pitched seven innings and gave up one hit with Jeff Innis pitching the eighth for the Mets’ 19th one-hitter. The Mets lost the game, 2-1, to the St. Louis Cardinals.

15 The complete list of Mets one-hitters can be found at the “Our First NoNoHitter” website. “Our First NoNoHitter (Formerly NoNoHitters.com),” accessed December 27, 2023, https://mets.nonohitters.com/onehitters/.

16 Associated Press, “Expos Fall to Earth With Thud,” Montreal Gazette, September 11, 1991: F4.

17 Czerwinski.

18 Czerwinski.

19 Cone went the distance in the Mets’ 4-1 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers.

20 “Expos Fall to Earth With Thud.”

21 Schourek was 11-4 with a 3.06 ERA in 19 starts for the Double-A Jackson Mets in 1990.

22 Czerwinski.

23 Glauber.

24 Schourek pitched in 41 games, 18 as a starter in 1993. He finished with a 5-12 record and a 5.96 ERA. The Mets placed him on waivers after the season.

25 Ira Berkow, “The Short, Unhappy Reign of Harrelson,” New York Times, September 30, 1991: C3.