This date in baseball

MAY 8

1906 Philadelphia Manager Connie Mack needed a substitute outfielder in the sixth inning of a game against Boston and called on pitcher Chief Bender. Bender hit two home runs, both inside the park. 1907 Boston’s Big Jeff Pfeffer threw a no-hitter to give the Braves a 6-0 victory over the Cincinnati Reds in Boston.

1929 Carl Hubbell of the New York Giants pitched a no-hitter against the Pittsburgh Pirates, the first by a left-hander in the majors in 13 seasons.

1935 In the first game of a doubleheader, Ernie Lombardi of the Cincinnati Reds hit four doubles in consecutive innings (sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth) off four different Phillies pitchers. Lombardi also singled to send the Reds past Philadelphia 15-4.

1946 Boston shortstop Johnny Pesky scored six times, an American League record, in a 14-10 victory over the White Sox. Pesky, who was 4 for 5 with 1 walk and 2 RBI, matched Mel Ott’s National League mark for runs scored in a game.

1966 Frank Robinson became the only player to hit a home run out of Baltimore’s Memorial Stadium. The shot over the left-field wall came off Cleveland righthander Luis Tiant. The Orioles won 8-3.

1966 The St. Louis Cardinals closed old Busch Stadium with a 10-5 loss to the San Francisco Giants. 1968 Jim “Catfish” Hunter of the Oakland A’s pitched a perfect game to beat the Minnesota Twins 4-0. 1984 Minnesota’s Kirby Puckett had four singles in his first major league game, and the Twins beat the California Angels 5-0. 1994 The Colorado Silver Bullets, the first women’s team to play a pro men’s team, lost 19-0 to the Northern League All-Stars. Leon Durham hit two home runs and Dennis “Oil Can” Boyd started for the All-Stars. The Silver Bullets had 2 hits, struck out 16 times and made 6 errors.

2001 Randy Johnson became the third pitcher to strike out 20 in nine innings, but didn’t finish the game in which the Arizona Diamondbacks beat Cincinnati 4-3 in 11 innings. Johnson, the first lefthander to strike out 20, missed a chance to join Roger Clemens and Kerry Wood as the record-holders for a nine-inning game because Arizona could not finish off the Reds in regulation.

2010 Jody Gerut hit for the cycle and drove in four runs, and the Milwaukee Brewers pounded the Arizona Diamondbacks 17-3. Gerut hit a solo home run in the second inning, singled in the third, drove in a run with a triple in the fifth and added a two-run double in the ninth.

2012 Josh Hamilton became the 16th player to hit four home runs in a game. His four two-run drives came against three different pitchers, carrying the Texas Rangers to a 10-3 victory over the Baltimore Orioles. 2015 Bryce Harper hit two more home runs, giving him five in two games, and Danny Espinosa also connected twice to power the Washington Nationals to a 9-2 victory over the Atlanta Braves. Harper, 22, became the youngest in major league history to hit five home runs in two games.