The Main Event
- September 11, 2004 – The Phillies use a team-record 10 pitchers in a 13-inning win over the Mets, and the two teams’ combined 18 pitchers tie a major-league record; Todd Pratt‘s second-inning, two-run homer breaks the team’s single-season home run record of 186, set in 1977.
The Philadelphia Phillies were still clinging to hope of a wild card berth when they arrived at Shea Stadium on Saturday, September 11, 2004, to face a New York Mets team that had already fallen out of contention. What followed was one of the strangest, most exhausting games either franchise played that year, a back and forth slugfest that ran thirteen innings, emptied both bullpens, and ended with the Phillies escaping with an 11-9 win. By the time it was over, the two teams had used a combined 18 pitchers, tying a major league record, while Philadelphia set a new franchise mark for pitchers used in a single game and broke its own single season home run record along the way.
A back and forth afternoon at Shea Stadium
The game started at 1:18 p.m. under mild, 71 degree conditions, and the Mets jumped on Phillies starter Eric Milton immediately. New York strung together three straight singles in the bottom of the first, then added a walk and two sacrifice flies to push three runs across before Milton recorded his first out. Philadelphia answered in the top of the second when catcher Todd Pratt, who entered the day with modest power numbers, drove a two-out, two-run homer off Mets starter Steve Trachsel to cut the deficit to 3-2.
New York pulled away again in the fifth, scoring three more runs to take a 6-2 lead, and Milton was done after five innings, having allowed six runs on seven hits. From there the game turned into a bullpen war. The Phillies chipped away with a run in the sixth, two more in the seventh, and two in the eighth on a Pat Burrell homer off reliever Braden Looper that gave Philadelphia a 7-6 lead. The Mets tied it right back in the eighth, and after nine innings the score stood knotted at 9-9, setting up four extra innings of scoreless baseball before the Phillies finally broke through.
Rookies on both sides of the diamond
The lineups that day offered a glimpse of each franchise’s future. Mets third baseman David Wright, who had debuted just seven weeks earlier, went 4-for-7 with a double and an RBI, part of a strong rookie season that hinted at the star he would become in Queens.
Philadelphia countered with its own prospect moment. Rookie Ryan Howard, who had been called up to the majors only days earlier, delivered a pinch-hit home run in the seventh inning, an early sign of the power that would eventually make him the National League’s Rookie of the Year in 2005 and MVP the following year. Mike Piazza, meanwhile, played first base rather than catcher for the Mets, a reflection of the position change the future Hall of Famer had made that season to manage the wear on his knees.
Everybody gets to pitch
What made the game a piece of team trivia, though, was what happened on the mound. Phillies manager Larry Bowa cycled through 10 pitchers, an unprecedented number for the franchise: Milton, Geoff Geary, Ryan Madson, Rheal Cormier, Tim Worrell, Billy Wagner, Todd Jones, Amaury Telemaco, Roberto Hernandez, and Felix Rodriguez. The Mets used eight of their own, including Trachsel, Bartolome Fortunato, Mike Stanton, Looper, Heath Bell, Pedro Feliciano, Ricky Bottalico, and Vic Darensbourg. The combined 18 pitchers tied the major league record for a nine inning or longer game, a mark that had been set only a handful of times before.
Wagner, the Phillies’ closer, was tagged with a blown save after allowing an inherited run to score in the ninth, part of the wild ninth inning swing that tied the game. Hernandez ended up picking up the win with a scoreless thirteenth, and Rodriguez closed the door in the bottom of the inning for his only save of the 2004 season.
David Bell‘s record setting swing
The decisive blow came in the top of the thirteenth. With the score tied at 9-9, two outs, and Jim Thome aboard, David Bell drove a pitch from Darensbourg deep to left field for a two-run homer, his second of the game. It was the first time in his Phillies career that Bell had hit two home runs in a single game, and it instantly swung Philadelphia’s win probability from roughly even to over 90 percent. Bell finished the afternoon 4-for-7 with four RBI, by far his best offensive day in a Phillies uniform.
Todd Pratt’s earlier two-run shot off Trachsel, combined with Bell’s pair and Howard’s pinch-hit blast, gave the Phillies five home runs on the day and, according to the team’s own historical accounting, pushed Philadelphia past its previous single season home run record of 186, a mark that had stood since the power-laden 1977 club featuring Mike Schmidt and Greg Luzinski.
What it meant for the standings
The win moved the Phillies to 73-69 and dropped the last place Mets to 61-80. It was the middle game of a three game sweep at Shea, part of a red hot stretch that saw Philadelphia go 18-11 in September as it chased the National League wild card. Despite that surge, the Phillies finished the season 86-76, six games behind the Houston Astros for the wild card and ten behind the Atlanta Braves in the NL East.
The disappointment of another near miss led the organization to fire Bowa on the second to last day of the season, even after his team’s strong finish, making this marathon win one small, memorable chapter in a season that ultimately ended in a manager’s dismissal rather than a playoff berth.
The bullpens bounce back
Remarkably, neither pitching staff needed a long recovery. In the very next game on September 12, Phillies starter Vicente Padilla worked 6.2 strong innings and Mets starter Tom Glavine matched him with six innings of his own, allowing each bullpen to use just four or five pitchers in a brisk three-hour, seven-minute game, a sharp contrast to the previous day’s five-hour, fifteen-minute marathon. Wagner, who had been stretched thin the day before, sat out entirely, and Tim Worrell picked up the save instead, his 19th of the season. The quick turnaround from both starting rotations meant the marathon in Queens, while a physical grind in the moment, left no lasting scars on either team’s pitching staff.
Philadelphia Baseball Events for September 11
- September 11, 1909 – The Athletics split a doubleheader with the Red Sox in Boston, each team winning its game by a 1-0 score.
- September 11, 1912 – Eddie Collins steals a major league record six bases as the Athletics beat the Tigers 9-7 in Detroit.
- September 11, 1955 – Pitcher Herm Wehmeier carries a 4-0 lead into the ninth of a doubleheader opener in Milwaukee before Del Crandall hits a two-out, 3-2-count grand slam to beat him; in the nightcap, 18-year-old Freddy Van Dusen makes his only career plate appearance as a pinch-hitter, getting hit by a pitch.
- September 11, 1973 – The Phillies sign minor-league free agent Willie Hernandez.
- September 11, 1978 – The Phillies trade Mike Buskey to Houston for cash.
Philadelphia Baseball Birthdays for September 11
- Mike DePangher (born 1858) – A catcher who appeared in just four games for the Phillies in 1884, his only major-league season.
- Ed McDonough (born 1886) – A catcher and pinch-hitter who played parts of the 1909 and 1910 seasons for the Phillies, his only major league club.
- Ray Grimes (born 1893) – A first baseman who spent his final big league season with the Phillies in 1926 after productive years with the Cubs; his brother Roy and son Oscar also played in the majors.
- Lou Grasmick (born 1924) – A pitcher who appeared in two games for the Phillies in 1948, his only major-league season.
- Larry Cox (born 1947) – A catcher who broke into the majors with the Phillies from 1973-1975 before longer stints with the Mariners and Rangers.
- Weston Wilson (born 1994) – A utility infielder/outfielder who homered off MacKenzie Gore in his first major league at-bat with the Phillies in 2023, then spent parts of three seasons in Philadelphia before being designated for assignment in January 2026.
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