Danny Cox, who had appeared twice in the World Series with the St. Louis Cardinals, was the Phils' No. 2 starter in 1991 (behind Terry Mulholland) and was scheduled to take a turn and win the rubber match of a three-game series.
Trouble was, Cox had apparently pulled a muscle and couldn't go.
Enter Tommy Greene.
Greene, clearly the add-on in the August, 1990 deal in which GM Lee Thomas acquired late-career slugger Dale Murphy, had pitched in all of 25 games in the majors until May 23, 1991. He was a swing man for then-Phils manager Jim Fregosi, with his last appearance 6 days prior, in mop-up duty where he picked up the win by tossing the final 4 scoreless innings in a 1-0, 16-inning victory over the Cubs.
Despite being one game below .500, the Phillies were a hurting bunch.
Just over 2 weeks prior, a car accident after a bachelor party for outfielder John Kruk resulted in centerfielder Lenny Dykstra -- who drove while intoxicated and crashed his sports car into a tree in Radnor Township in the early morning hours of May 7 -- suffering a broken collarbone, broken ribs and a broken cheekbone, while starting catcher Darren Daulton sustained a fractured left orbital bone and scratched cornea.
So it was Greene and backup Darren Fletcher the battery at Stade Olympique, opposing Dennis "Oil Can" Boyd, who'd pitched alongside Roger Clemens with the Red Sox for 5 seasons
It had been 281 days since Mulholland no-hit the San Francisco Giants and was one throwing error away from pitching a perfect game that instead went in the books as a 6-0 victory and the first Phillies no-no recorded at Veterans Stadium. Greene was on the bench for that one, having been acquired from the Braves just over a week prior.
As told to MLB.com in 2021, here's Greene's thought process as he took the hill: "Mentally, I told myself I was going to treat this start like I treated my relief appearances. Be aggresstive and go as long and as hard as I can. My thought was 'if I run out of gas, they will put someone else in for me.' Hold nothing back!"
In return, his teammates provided the slimmest of margins for error -- a first-inning RBI triple from Ricky Jordan after Kruk reached with a 2-out double.
Greene did manage to retire 11 in a row at one point, between the 2nd and 5th innings, but had at least 1 runner on base in the 1st, 2nd, 6th, 7th and 8th frames. Along with his career-best 10 strikeouts, he walked 7 batters, including two in the 2nd and two more in the 6th.
With three outs to go, Philly's offense came to life for the second and final time, on back-to-back doubles from Von Hayes and Fletcher.
More Greene: "It wasn't until after the seventh inning that I realized I hadn't given up a hit. When I did that, I immediately thought of the three no-hit bids I had coming up through the minor leagues that I lost with two outs and two strikes in the last inning. I said to myself, 'take one batter at a time.' In the bottom of the ninth, I was facing the meat of their order."
Andres Galarraga was his 10th and final punchout for the first out of the 9th. Larry Walker was retired on a routine ground ball to third.
Tim Wallach was the final batter, and here's Greene's mindset as revealed in that 2021 piece: "I then told myseld I was going straight after Tim. I wasn't getting two strikes again unless he fouled pitches off. 'Fletch' put down the sign for a fastball. By then, I had thrown probably over 100 fastballs out of my 135 pitches. I agreed with his sign and said to myself, 'stay aggressive,' and threw the fastball on the outer half of the plate. He swung and hit probably the hardest ball all day but it was a one-hopper right back to me."
The highlight package from KYW 3 tells the rest of the story:
If you remember this game well, you might have been playing sick, or hooky, from either work or school. The final contest in the three-game set against the Expos was a Thursday afternoon first pitch, coming at a time when break time for TV watching at either work or school was reserved for things like the NCAA tournament only when local universities were playing.
After a 4-9 start which cost Nick Leyva his job, long-time major leaguer and former Angels and White Sox skipper Jim Fregosi was called upon from his brief stint in the broadcast booth to bring a desperately needed spark. The 2-0 win brought the Phillies up to the .500 mark for the first (20-20) AND last time all season.
Despite the eventual returns of Dykstra and Daulton, a lack of depth across the roster began to take its toll and by late July, the Phillies were dead last in the NL East.
Only a 13-game win streak and solid play over the remainder of the schedule -- even after Dykstra was lost for the back end of the season after breaking his other collarbone colliding with the outfield wall in Cincinnati -- brought their record to 78-84, good enough for 3rd place in a weak division.
Greene finished the 1991 campaign with a 13-7 record, 2 more complete games and a 3.38 ERA over 207.1 innings. He endured a mostly injury-plagued career from there, the lone exception a brilliant 1993 campaign during which he finihsed 16-4 with 7 complete games and 2 shutouts for the National League champions.
The Phillies would not record another no-hitter until April 27, 2003, at the Vet. Kevin Millwood shut down the Giants, 1-0.
