ON THIS DATE

Sept. 3

1917: Philadelphia’s Grover Cleveland Alexander went the distance in both games of the Phillies’ 5-0 and 9-3 sweep of the Brooklyn Dodgers.

1947: Bill McCahan pitched a no-hitter to give the Philadelphia Athletics a 3-0 win over the Washington Senators. One batter reached base for Washington, a two-base throwing error by first baseman Ferris Fain in the second inning.

1947: The New York Yankees had 18 hits, all singles, in an 11-2 victory over Boston at Fenway Park. Tommy Henrich and Joe DiMaggio each had four hits.

1957: Warren Spahn of the Milwaukee Braves pitched his 41st career shutout with an 8-0 victory over the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field. Spahn’s shutout set a major league record for left-handers.

1970: Billy Williams of the Chicago Cubs asked to be kept out of the lineup, ending his National League record of 1,117 consecutive games played. His record was broken in 1983 by Steve Garvey.

1976: Milwaukee’s Mike Hegan hit for the cycle and drove in six runs to lead the Brewers to an 11-2 rout of Mark Fidrych and the Detroit Tigers.

1986: Billy Hatcher’s homer in the top of the 18th inning gave the Houston Astros an 8-7 victory over the Chicago Cubs. The teams played 14 innings the day before and used a major league record 53 players in the game.

1990: Bobby Thigpen set a major league record with his 47th save in a 4-2 White Sox victory over Kansas City. Thigpen broke the record set by Dave Righetti of the Yankees in 1986.

2000: Kenny Lofton’s 1st-inning run ties a 1939 major league record set by the Yankees ‘Red Rolfe for scoring in 18 consecutive games. The speedy Indians outfielder, besides hitting the game-winning homer in the 13th, also steals five bases tying Cleveland’s single-game record set by Alex Cole.

2001: Bud Smith became the 16th rookie in modern history to throw a no-hitter and the second to do it to San Diego this season in St. Louis’ 4-0 win. Smith was making his 11th career start.

2007: Pedro Martinez completed his comeback from major shoulder surgery and quickly went into the record books, becoming the 15th pitcher to strike out 3,000 batters in his career. The New York Mets right-hander needed only two strikeouts to reach the mark in a 10-4 win over Cincinnati.

2008: Baseball’s first use of instant replay backed an on-field call of a home run for Alex Rodriguez during the ninth inning of the New York Yankees game against the Tampa Bay Rays. It took 2 minutes, 15 seconds to uphold the homer that gave the Yankees an 8-3 lead.

2011: Milwaukee’s George Kottaras hit for the cycle to lead the Brewers to an 8-2 win over the Houston Astros.

2013: Pinch-hitter Travis Snider homered in the ninth inning to lift Pittsburgh to a 4-3 win over the Milwaukee Brewers that clinched the Pirates’ first non-losing record in 21 seasons.

2017: Jose Ramirez tied a major league record with five extra-base hits, including a pair of home runs that deflected off Detroit outfielders, and the Cleveland Indians routed the Tigers 11-1 for their 11th straight victory. Ramirez had three doubles in becoming the 13th player with five extra-base hits in a game.

Sept. 4

1916: Longtime pitching rivals Christy Mathewson and Mordecai Brown closed their careers, by special arrangement, in the same game. Mathewson won the game 10-8.

1923: Sam Jones of the New York Yankees pitched a 2-0 no-hitter against Philadelphia Athletics without striking out a batter. New York’s Babe Ruth had the only strikeout of the game.

1927: Lloyd and Paul Waner became the first brothers to hit home runs in the same game, leading Pittsburgh to an 8-4 win over Cincinnati. Both homers came off Dolf Luque in the fifth inning, the only time in major league history brothers did it in one inning. Lloyd led off the inning with his second home run of the season, and a batter later Paul hit his ninth of the year. Both were bounce home runs, allowed until the 1931; now ground-rule doubles.

1928: The Boston Braves started a grueling string in which they played nine straight doubleheaders, a major league record.

1941: The New York Yankees clinched the pennant on the earliest date in baseball history with a 6-3 victory over Boston.

1966: Los Angeles became the first team in major league history to draw more than 2 million at home and on the road when the Dodgers beat the Reds 8-6 before 18,670 fans in Cincinnati.

1974: Don Wilson of the Houston Astros was replaced by a pinch hitter after pitching eight no-hit innings against Cincinnati. Mike Cosgrove pitched the ninth inning and gave up a leadoff single to Tony Perez for the only hit in the Reds’ 2-1 victory.

1985: Gary Carter hit two solo homers to tie a major league record and singled in another run to lead the New York Mets to a 9-2 victory over San Diego. Carter’s feat followed a three-homer performance the night before as he became the 11th player in major league history to hit five home runs in two games.

1993: Jim Abbott threw the New York Yankees’ first no-hitter in 10 years, leading them to a 4-0 victory over the Cleveland Indians.

1995: Robin Ventura became the eighth player in major league history: and the first in 25 years: to hit two grand slams in one game as the Chicago White Sox beat Texas 14-3.

1998: The New York Yankees reached 100 wins on the earliest date in major league history: five days before the 1906 Chicago Cubs and 1954 Cleveland Indians: with an 11-6 victory over the Chicago White Sox. The ‘06 Cubs set the major league record for fewest games to reach 100 victories (132).

2002: The Oakland Athletics set an AL record by winning their 20th straight game. They somehow blew an 11-run lead before pinch-hitter Scott Hatteberg homered in the bottom of the ninth inning to beat Kansas City 12-11. Oakland broke a three-way tie for the longest winning streak in AL history with the 1906 Chicago White Sox and the 1947 New York Yankees.

2017: J.D. Martinez tied a major league record by hitting four home runs and the Arizona Diamondbacks routed the Los Angeles Dodgers 13-0 for their 11th straight victory. Martinez became the 18th player in major league history to hit four homers in a game, and the 16th in the modern era.

Sept. 5

1908: Brooklyn’s Nap Rucker pitched a 6-0 no-hitter against Boston. Rucker struck out 14 and walked none.

1918: Babe Ruth pitched a six-hitter for the Boston Red Sox, who beat the Chicago Cubs 1-0 in the opening game of the World Series. The Series was started early because of World War I.

1954: Roswell’s Joe Bauman of the Longhorn League hit three home runs to give him 72 for the season. Bauman never made it to the majors.

1955: Brooklyn pitcher Don Newcombe connected for his seventh homer of the season for a National League record for home runs by a pitcher. The Dodgers, behind Newcombe’s power and 20th win, defeated the Phillies 11-4.

1971: J.R. Richard tied Karl Spooner’s major league record by striking out 15 San Francisco Giants in his first major league game as the Houston Astros beat the Giants.

1982: Roy Smalley hit a pair of three-run homers, one from each side of the plate, as the Yankees beat the Kansas City Royals 18-7.

1998: Mark McGwire became the third player in baseball history to reach 60 home runs, as the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Cincinnati Reds 7-0. He joined Babe Ruth and Roger Maris with 60 homers in a single season.

2002: Alex Rodriguez became the fifth player in major league history to record successive 50-homer seasons, hitting two in Texas’ 11-2 rout of Baltimore. Rodriguez, who hit 52 homers last season, joined Babe Ruth, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Ken Griffey Jr.

2003: Mike Maroth became the first major league pitcher in 23 years to lose 20 games in a season when Detroit lost to Toronto 8-6. Maroth (6-20) allowed eight runs and nine hits in three-plus innings. Oakland’s Brian Kingman went 8-20 in 1980.

2009: Pittsburgh’s Ross Ohlendorf became the 40th major league pitcher to strike out the side on nine pitches in an inning, but didn’t figure in the decision as the Pirates lost 2-1 to St. Louis in 10 innings.

2018: Shohei Ohtani homered twice during a huge night at the plate after getting bad news about his pitching arm, and the Los Angeles Angels beat the Texas Rangers 9-3. Perhaps headed for Tommy John surgery, the two-way rookie sensation went 4 for 4 with three RBIs, four runs and a stolen base to power the Angels. Ohtani’s homers were towering drives into the right-field seats. With his second two-homer game, the designated hitter tied Kenji Johjima’s 2006 major league record of 18 homers by a Japanese rookie.

2018: Brandon Phillips hit a two-out, two-run homer in the ninth inning, highlighting his long-awaited season debut and capping the biggest comeback by the Boston Red Sox this year for a 9-8 win over the Atlanta Braves. The Red Sox overcame a late six-run deficit to sweep the three-game series between division leaders.

2023: Giancarlo Stanton hits the 400th home run of his career off José Cisnero in the 6th inning to break a 1 - 1 tie and lead the Yankees to a 5 - 1 win over the Tigers. Having needed 1,520 games to reach the mark makes him the fourth fastest in history following Mark McGwire, Babe Ruth and Alex Rodriguez.