This story was excerpted from Brian McTaggart’s Astros Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
HOUSTON -- Forty years ago this month, the Astros were charging towards a National League West championship, having bucked the experts that picked them to finish in last place. And having defied Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda, who said in the middle of the summer that the club was simply renting first place.
The 1986 Astros were defined by pitching, which had been the franchise’s formula for success while playing in the cavernous Astrodome. They finished second in the Major Leagues that year in ERA (3.15), behind only the eventual World Series champion Mets (3.11), and Houston led the Majors in strikeouts (1,160) and shutouts (19).
The Astros’ rotation was led by future Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan, who was still throwing 100 mph heat at age 39, veteran lefty Bob Knepper and late-blooming right-hander Mike Scott, who went 18-10 and led MLB in innings (275 1/3), ERA (2.22) and strikeouts (306) en route to winning the NL Cy Young Award.
When Scott threw a no-hitter to clinch the NL West title against the Giants on Sept. 25 of that season, it capped a three-day span of remarkable pitching for Houston. Scott’s no-no was the icing on the cake, but Ryan and rookie Jim Deshaies set the stage with terrific outings of their own.
Deshaies, who the Astros had acquired from the Yankees in the Joe Niekro deal a year earlier, had no idea when he took the mound against the Dodgers on Sept. 23 in the Astrodome that he would make history.
Deshaies, then 26, was en route to winning 12 games in his first full season. He was pitching for the first time in nearly two weeks on that Tuesday, and he felt strong coming out of the bullpen before the game.
“I was terrible at the start of games,” Deshaies said. “The team was always holding its breath until I could get through the first couple of innings, and I picked up steam as I went along.”
Deshaies struck out Steve Sax, Reggie Williams and Enos Cabell in the first inning. Pedro Guerrero, Alex Trevino and Jeff Hamilton all whiffed in the second, and when Dave Anderson became his seventh consecutive strikeout victim to start the third, Deshaies began to hear the crowd buzz.
“After I got the seventh, I get the ball back and I was rubbing it up, and I hear a secondary ovation,” Deshaies said. “I kind of turned around and looked at the scoreboard, and they put a message saying, ‘Jim Deshaies has just tied the modern record for most strikeouts to start a game with seven.’ That was the first time I got wind of something was going on.”
Deshaies broke the record by striking out Jose Gonzalez to bring up the ninth spot in the Dodgers’ order, which would have been pitcher Dennis Powell had Lasorda not decided he had seen enough. He sent Larry See to the plate to pinch-hit. He popped out.
“At that time, you’re so caught up in what you’re doing and you don’t second-guess what’s going on,” Deshaies said. “It didn’t cross my mind it was out of the ordinary or to question his motives. I really felt I should have gotten the ninth one. I had him 2-2, I believe. When you’re pitching and in a zone like that, you can almost foresee results if you make a certain pitch.”
Deshaies struck out only two batters the rest of the way, but he pitched the entire nine innings in a 4-0 victory for the first of his six career shutouts. The next day, Ryan struck out 12 batters in eight scoreless innings, allowing just one hit in a 6-0 win over the Giants.
Deshaies was in the clubhouse after Ryan’s game and was joking with catcher Alan Ashby.
“I joked and said, ‘Everything that Nolan’s done in the game, and you think he could have let me be the guy for more than 24 hours?’ I was just having fun with it,” Deshaies said. “Ash says, ‘Well, I’ve got a feeling Scotty’s going to come out tomorrow and show you both up.’”
Indeed. Scott provided one of the signature moments in franchise history. He threw a no-hitter, striking 13 batters as the Astros clinched the division title with a 2-0 win over the Giants. In posting three consecutive shutouts, Astros pitchers allowed four hits and struck out 35 batters in 27 innings.
“It’s kind of fun to be lumped with that three-game sequence,” Deshaies said.