May 11
1904 — Cy Young’s 23-inning no-hit string ended. The streak included two innings on April 25, six on April 30, a perfect game against the Philadelphia A’s on May 5, and six innings today.
1919 — Walter Johnson of the Washington Senators pitched 12 scoreless innings in a duel with Jack Quinn of the New York Yankees at the Polo Grounds. The Big Train allowed only two hits and retired 28 batters in a row. Future football star George Halas, batting leadoff for the Yankees, went 0-for-5, striking out twice.
1919 — Hod Eller of the Cincinnati Reds pitched a no-hitter to beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 6-0. Eller struck out eight and walked three.
1923 — Setting several Pacific Coast League records, Pete Schneider of Vernon hit five homers and a double to knock in 14 runs in a 35-11 romp over Salt Lake City.
1955 — Ernie Banks’ grand slam — the first of five on the year — led the Chicago Cubs to a 10-8 victory that snapped the Brooklyn Dodgers’ 11-game winning streak.
1963 — Sandy Koufax pitched the second of four career no-hitters to help Los Angeles beat San Francisco 8-0.
1971 — Cleveland pitcher Steve Dunning became the last American League pitcher to hit a grand slam before the inception of the designated hitter rule in 1973. Dunning’s homer off Diego Segui of the Oakland A’s gave the Indians a 5-0 lead, but Phil Hennigan got the victory as the Indians won 7-5.
1996 — Al Leiter, the wildest pitcher in the American League the previous season, pitched the first no-hitter in Florida’s brief history as the Marlins beat the Colorado Rockies 11-0.
1998 — Kerry Wood of the Chicago Cubs set the major league record for strikeouts in consecutive games (33) by fanning 13 Arizona Diamondbacks in a 4-2 victory. The record for strikeouts in two starts had been 32, set by Luis Tiant in 1968 and matched by Nolan Ryan (1974), Dwight Gooden (1984) and Randy Johnson (1997).
2000 — The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Chicago Cubs 14-8 in the longest nine-inning game in National League history — 4 hours, 22 minutes. The teams tied the major league record set by Baltimore and the Yankees on Sept. 5, 1997.
2003 — Rafael Palmeiro of Texas became the 19th player to join the 500-homer club. In a 17-10 win, Palmeiro hit a full-count fastball into the right field stands off Cleveland right-hander David Elder.
2009 — In the tallest pitching matchup in baseball history, 6-foot-10 Randy Johnson beat 6-9 Daniel Cabrera. The Big Unit and the towering Cabrera measure a combined 163 inches — one more than the combined heights of Cabrera and Mark Hendrickson on Sept. 1, 2004, in the previous record-holding matchup. Johnson struck out nine for his 298th career victory as San Francisco topped Washington 11-7.
May 12
1910 — Chief Bender of the Philadelphia Athletics pitched a 4-0 no-hitter against the Cleveland Indians.
1937 — St. Louis’ Joe Medwick hit two home runs and two doubles to lead the Cardinals to a 15-3 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies.
1955 — Sam “Toothpick” Jones of the Cubs got a no-hitter the hard way. In the ninth inning against Pittsburgh, he walked the bases full and then struck out the next three batters for a 4-0 victory.
1956 — Carl Erskine of the Brooklyn Dodgers pitched a 3-0 no-hitter against the New York Giants.
1966 — Lou Brock’s RBI single in the 12th inning gave the St. Louis Cardinals a 4-3 victory over Atlanta in the opening of Busch Memorial Stadium. Felipe Alou hit two home runs for the Braves.
1970 — Ernie Banks hit his 500th home run off Pat Jarvis in Chicago’s 4-3 victory over Atlanta at Wrigley Field.
2000 — Boston’s Pedro Martinez, who had 17 strikeouts in his last start May 6 against Tampa Bay, struck out 15 in a 9-0 win over Baltimore, to tie an AL record set in 1968 by Cleveland’s Luis Tiant for most strikeouts over two games.
2001 — A.J. Burnett pitched an unlikely no-hitter — overcoming a record nine walks — to lead Florida over San Diego 3-0.
2008 — Indians second baseman Asdrubal Cabrera turned the 14th unassisted triple play in major league history, accomplishing the feat in the second game of a doubleheader against Toronto. Cabrera made a diving catch on a line drive by Lyle Overbay, touched second base and then tagged out Marco Scutaro to quickly end the fifth inning of Cleveland’s 3-0 loss in 10 innings.
2009 — Ryan Zimmerman extended his hitting streak to 30 games, getting a first-inning single in the Washington Nationals’ 9-7 loss to San Francisco.
2010 — Homer Bailey became the latest Cincinnati Reds starter to pitch a gem against the Pittsburgh Pirates, tossing his first career complete game in a 5-0 win. The Reds became the first team in the majors in nearly 10 years to pitch back-to-back, complete-game shutouts without a walk — Oakland’s Tim Hudson and Barry Zito did it on Sept. 9-10, 2000, against Tampa Bay.
May 13
1911 — Detroit’s Ty Cobb hit his first grand slam. After six innings, the Tigers led the Red Sox, 10-1. Boston came back to win the game 13-11 in 10 innings.
1911 — The New York Giants scored a major league record 10 runs before the St. Louis Cardinals retired the first batter in the first inning. Fred Merkle drove in six of the Giants’ 13 runs in the first en route to a 19-5 rout.
1923 — Joe Sewell of the Cleveland Indians struck out twice in one game for the first time in his career. Washington Senator rookie Wally Warmoth was the pitcher. In a 14-year career, Sewell had only one other multiple strikeout game.
1942 — Boston’s Jim Tobin became the only pitcher in modern history to hit three home runs in one game. Tobin led the Braves to a 6-5 win over the Chicago Cubs. His fourth at-bat was a fly ball caught against the fence in left field.
1958 — Teammates Willie Mays and Darryl Spencer each had four long hits as San Francisco beat the Dodgers in Los Angeles 16-9. Mays had two homers, two triples, a single and four RBIs, and Spencer had two homers, a triple, a double and six RBIs for a combined 28 total bases.
1958 — Stan Musial got his 3,000th hit with a pinch-double off Chicago’s Moe Drabowsky at Wrigley Field. The Cardinals won 5-3.
1980 — Ray Knight of Cincinnati hit two home runs in the fifth inning — including a grand slam — to lead the Reds to a 15-4 rout of the New York Mets. 7
1982 — The Chicago Cubs won game No. 8,000 in their history with a 5-0 victory over Houston at the Astrodome.
1989 — Kirby Puckett of the Minnesota Twins tied a major league record with four doubles against the Blue Jays. He became the 35th player to hit four doubles in a game, the first since Toronto’s Damaso Garcia in 1986.
1994 — Tim Salmon of the California Angels went 5-for-5 against the Seattle Mariners to give him 13 hits over three consecutive games.
2000 — Todd Stottlemyre of Arizona earned his seventh victory of the season as the Diamondbacks beat the San Diego Padres 6-2. It was Todd’s 136th career win. He and father Mel Stottlemyre became the first father-son combination to record 300 wins.
2007 — San Francisco rookie Fred Lewis hit for the cycle in a 15-2 win over Colorado, just four days after being called up from Triple-A Fresno.
2009 — Soon after Adam LaRoche became the first player to have a home run taken away following a video replay review, Ross Gload lost one the same way when umpires reversed their call. LaRoche wound up with a double for Pittsburgh at PNC Park. Gload’s pinch-hit drive was finally called foul at Milwaukee and he eventually struck out. Both players had already rounded the bases when umps changed the original call.
2009 — Ryan Zimmerman’s 30-game hitting streak ended when he went 0 for 3 with two walks in Washington’s 6-3 victory over the San Francisco Giants.
2012 — Joey Votto hit a grand slam in the ninth inning for his third home run of the game, rallying the Cincinnati Reds to a rain-delayed 9-6 victory over the Washington Nationals.
2014 — Pinch-hitter Greg Garcia was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded and one out in the 12th inning, sending the St. Louis Cardinals to 4-3 win over the Chicago Cubs.