Just halfway into May, the 1997 Cardinals had experienced much adversity, including six consecutive losses to open the season and a mid-April stretch in which they never scored more than two runs in five straight games. But Alan Benes may have absorbed the cruelest blow.
Matched against Greg Maddux in a scoreless duel, Benes held the Braves hitless for 8.2 innings on May 16 in Atlanta until outfielder Michael Tucker laced a double. In the 13th, Tucker raced home from third base on an infield dribbler by Andruw Jones off John Frascatore, and Atlanta won, 1-0.
When the Dodgers beat the Padres, 1-0, on July 9, 2011, by scoring a run in the bottom of the ninth after being held hitless for 8.2 innings, San Diego became the first team to lose after recording 26 outs without allowing a hit since the Cardinals’ heartbreak in Atlanta 14 years earlier, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
Alan Benes, 25, was 3-4 with a 3.08 ERA when he faced the defending National League-champion Braves. From the first pitch, he threw hard and with command. “Numbers-wise, that’s the most outstanding game I’ve ever pitched,” Benes said afterward.
The right-hander struck out 11 and walked three. After retiring the first two batters in the ninth, Benes threw a strike to Tucker, a left-handed batter. Tucker crushed the next pitch for a double, ruining the no-hit bid. “If I had made a good pitch, I would have gotten him out,” Benes told the Associated Press.
Benes then issued an intentional walk to Chipper Jones, struck out Fred McGriff and turned the game over to the St. Louis bullpen.
“We feel terrible we couldn’t get him a run,” Cardinals outfielder Willie McGee said.
In his last four starts, including the Atlanta game, Benes had allowed five earned runs in 31.3 innings _ and hadn’t won any of those. “We’re helping the (opposing) pitcher out by taking too many fastballs for strikes and swinging at offspeed pitches in the dirt,” outfielder Ray Lankford told St. Louis writer Rick Hummel.
After Maddux held the Cardinals scoreless for eight innings, relievers Mark Wohlers, Mike Bielecki, Paul Byrd, Alan Embree, Brad Clontz and Joe Borowski combined to shut out St. Louis for five innings.
In the bottom of the 13th, Tucker singled off Frascatore with one out, stole second and advanced to third on a flyout. McGriff was walked intentionally, bringing up Andruw Jones.
Fooled by Frascatore’s pitch, Jones checked his swing. The ball struck his bat and rolled slowly between the mound and first base. Tucker streaked across the plate as Jones reached first. “I was looking for a fastball, but he threw me a slider and I almost broke my wrist,” Jones told reporters.
Said Cardinals manager Tony La Russa: “This is a really cruel way to lose. I’d rather lose any way than the way we did _ on a darned check swing.” Boxscore
The Cardinals never recovered. The loss was their fifth in six games and it launched them on a four-game losing streak. After having moved within a game of .500 on May 8, the Cardinals fell to 17-25 and stumbled to a 73-89 season just a year after winning the NL Central championship.
Worse, Benes experienced more misfortune.
After his near no-hitter, Benes’ older brother, Cardinals pitcher Andy Benes, told The Sporting News his sibling is “the type of guy who can go out and throw a no-hitter every five days because he throws the ball so hard and because of his breaking pitches.”
At the end of July, with a 9-9 record and 2.89 ERA, Alan Benes went on the disabled list because of a right shoulder injury. He sat out the remainder of the season, and all of the 1998 season, and never again regained his peak form.
[…] Retrosimba wrote a couple of years ago about the Benes near-miss. […]