The Main Event

A nondescript early-afternoon game at Turner Field, saw the Philadelphia Phillies do something no Phillies team had ever done in 132 years of franchise history: they no-hit an opponent using more than one pitcher. Cole Hamels started and worked six hitless innings, and relievers Jake Diekman, Ken Giles, and Jonathan Papelbon each retired the Atlanta Braves in order over the final three frames, sealing a 7-0 win and the Phillies’ first — and to date only — combined no-hitter.

A last-place team’s lone signature moment

The 2014 Phillies were not a good baseball team. They would finish the year 73-89, dead last in the National League East, the first season of what became a half-decade rebuild after the core of the 2008 championship roster had aged out of contention. Atlanta, by contrast, entered the day fighting for a playoff spot at 72-65. None of that mattered once the Phillies got to Braves starter Julio Teheran for a run in the third, another in the sixth, three more in a seventh-inning outburst, and two in the ninth. Teheran took the loss; Hamels, working in front of a Labor Day crowd of 34,178, picked up the win and improved to 8-6 on the year in what was, statistically, the best season of his career — he finished 2014 at 9-9 with a 2.46 ERA and 198 strikeouts over 204⅔ innings, good for sixth in the NL Cy Young voting despite pitching for a team that couldn’t score or field behind him.

Hamels’ half of the no-hitter was more grind than gem. He walked five batters, hit one, and needed 108 pitches to get through six innings on a hot, humid afternoon — hardly the efficient outing a starter wants when a no-hitter is on the line. He struck out seven and, crucially, never allowed a ball to find grass. By the time he’d finished the sixth, his pitch count and the Phillies’ comfortable lead made the decision easy for manager Ryne Sandberg: hand the ball to the bullpen and let fresh arms finish the job.

Diekman, Giles, and Papelbon close it out

The Phillies’ relief trio needed only three innings, combined, to complete the no-hitter, and none of the three allowed a baserunner. Diekman worked the seventh, Giles the eighth, and Papelbon the ninth, each posting a perfect frame. It was a fitting cap to a breakout rookie season for Giles in particular. Called up in mid-June, he finished 2014 with a 1.18 ERA and 64 strikeouts in 38⅓ innings, a performance dominant enough to land him fourth in NL Rookie of the Year voting. Papelbon, the Phillies’ All-Star closer, simply did what he’d done all season — he converted the no-hitter’s final three outs as routinely as any of his 39 saves that year. Diekman, the least heralded of the group, quietly authored one of the three perfect innings that made the whole thing possible.

Where each pitcher had been, and where he went next

Hamels was the elder statesman of the group and the only holdover from the Phillies’ championship era, having debuted in 2006 and won World Series MVP honors in 2008 after outdueling the Dodgers and Rays that October. The combined no-hitter was not his Phillies farewell — he pitched into the following season — but the end came soon enough. On July 25, 2015, in what turned out to be his final start in a Phillies uniform, Hamels threw a second no-hitter, a complete game against the Cubs at Wrigley Field. Six days later, at the July 31 trade deadline, the long-rebuilding Phillies finally pulled the trigger on a deal that had been rumored for months, sending Hamels and Diekman to the Texas Rangers for a package of six players and prospects. Hamels went on to pitch for the Rangers, Cubs, and Braves, then made unsuccessful comeback attempts with the Dodgers in 2021 and the Padres in 2023, an injury-shortened final chapter before he officially retired in August 2023 with 163 career wins, a 3.43 ERA, and four All-Star selections.

Diekman, a homegrown Phillies product picked in the 30th round of the 2007 draft, went with Hamels to Texas in that 2015 deal and pitched until 2024, working for eight different organizations along the way. His career was defined as much by his fight against ulcerative colitis as by his pitching; in 2017, the disease forced him to have his colon removed in a series of surgeries that cost him most of that season, yet he returned to pitch effectively for years afterward before retiring in 2025.

Giles’ rise was even more dramatic than his fall. The Phillies dealt him to the Houston Astros in a seven-player trade in December 2015, and he closed for the Astros’ 2017 World Series championship team — though the postseason itself was rough on him, and he was removed from the closer’s role during that World Series. He was later traded to Toronto, blew out his elbow and needed Tommy John surgery in 2020, and has pitched sparingly after that, bouncing between organizations without regaining his earlier form.

Papelbon’s Phillies tenure ended in a trade to the Washington Nationals in July 2015, and his career there is remembered less for his pitching than for a dugout altercation with Bryce Harper that September, when he grabbed Harper by the throat after a perceived lack of hustle. He served a suspension, apologized, and pitched sparingly afterward, retiring having also closed out Boston’s 2007 World Series title — making him a champion in two different uniforms, bookending a Phillies tenure whose brightest moment was the no-hitter itself.

A record that still stands alone

Nearly twelve years later, the Phillies have not thrown another combined no-hitter; September 1, 2014 remains the only one in franchise history. The closest thing to a sequel came from the other side of the ball: on April 29, 2022, five Mets pitchers combined to no-hit the Phillies, a reminder of just how rare the feat is in either direction. For one hot Labor Day afternoon in Atlanta, though, it was the Phillies’ turn — four pitchers from four very different career arcs, thrown together for nine hitless innings that none of them ever quite repeated.

Philadelphia Baseball Events for September 1

  • September 1, 1906 – Jack Coombs and the Athletics outlasted Boston’s Joe Harris in a 24-inning marathon at Huntington Avenue Grounds, winning 4-1 as both pitchers threw complete games — one of the longest pitching duels in major-league history.
  • September 1, 1945 – Vince DiMaggio ties a Major League record with his fourth grand-slam of the season, helping the Phils to an 8-3 win over Boston.
  • September 1, 1953 – Robin Roberts appears on the cover of Sport magazine.
  • September 1, 1957 – Signed free agent Andy Seminick.
  • September 1, 1963 – Former Phillie Curt Simmons of the Cardinals beats the Phils 7-3 on a six-hitter, adding a triple and stealing home on a suicide squeeze — the last pitcher to do so.
  • September 1, 1980 – Tim McCarver, who had been broadcasting for the team since his 1979 retirement, signs as a free agent and returns to the dugout as an active player, the first catcher to play in four decades.
  • September 1, 1993 – Acquired Donn Pall from Chicago (AL) for a player to be named.
  • September 1, 1997 – Curt Schilling fans 16 Yankees over eight innings, allowing one run on seven hits and no walks — a team record for most strikeouts without a walk.
  • September 1, 2018 – Lost Mark Leiter Jr. off waivers to Toronto.
  • September 1, 2024 – Nick Castellanos‘ two-out RBI single in the 11th caps a comeback and beats Atlanta 3-2, extending Philadelphia’s NL East lead to seven games in the season’s final meeting between the two clubs.
  • September 1, 2025 – Trailing by four runs early, the Phillies rally to beat Milwaukee 10-8 as Brandon Marsh (4-for-5) delivers the go-ahead RBI single in the ninth; Bryce Harper also homers.

ICYMI

  • Philly Baseball News – The Phillies Send Veteran Tommy Pham to the White Sox

Philadelphia Baseball Birthdays for September 1

  • Hub Pruett (born 1900) – Left-handed pitcher who spent two seasons (1927-1928) with the Phillies, best remembered as a St. Louis Browns rookie who struck out Babe Ruth 13 times in 16 at-bats in 1922.
  • Ham Schulte (born 1912) – Second baseman who played his only big league season with the Phillies in 1940, batting .236 with 21 RBI in 120 games.
  • Joe Marty (born 1913) – Center fielder acquired from the Cubs in 1939 who played for the Phillies through 1941, hitting .270 with 13 home runs in 1940 before military service and a knee injury ended his career.
  • Joe Astroth (born 1922) – Catcher who spent his entire career with the Athletics (1945-1954 in Philadelphia, then Kansas City), serving as Bobby Shantz‘s personal catcher during Shantz’s 1952 MVP season and once driving in six runs in a single inning.
  • Ed Samcoff (born 1924) – Second baseman whose entire major-league career consisted of four games for the Philadelphia A’s in April 1951, going hitless in 10 at-bats.
  • Garry Maddox (born 1949) – Gold Glove center fielder for the Phillies from 1975-1986, winning eight Gold Gloves and helping the team win the 1980 World Series; nicknamed “the Secretary of Defense.”
  • Dave Rucker (born 1957) – Left-handed reliever acquired by the Phillies in a 1985 trade with St. Louis (for Bill Campbell and Iván DeJesús), pitching for the club in 1985-1986.
  • David West (born 1964) – Left-handed reliever who was a key bullpen piece on the Phillies’ 1993 NL pennant-winning team, posting a career-best 2.92 ERA over 76 appearances that season.
  • Sean O’Sullivan (born 1987) – Right-handed pitcher who appeared in 13 games for the Phillies in 2015 on a minor league deal, going 1-6 with a 6.08 ERA.

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