On This Date In 1971, Rick Wise Hit Two Homeruns (and threw a no-hitter, too)

No other pitcher has ever hit two HRs while pitching a no-hitter (3 other guys had 1 HR-Wes Ferrell, Jim Tobin and Earl Wilson). All data comes from Baseball Reference and its Play Index.

Wise drove in 3 of the 4 runs for the Phillies that day. His game score was 89. Pretty good, but only tied for 16th best that year in the majors that year (Wise had another 9 IP game score of 89 that year as well as a 92 in a 12 inning game). Bill Stoneman had the highest in 1971 with a 98.

He walked one batter but only struck out 3. He averaged 5.1 K's per 9 IP that year, so you would expect a guy to do even better in a no hitter.

Since 1908, a pitcher has hit 2 HRs in a game only 69 times (one of those was a game when Tobin hit 3). Even reaching 8 TBs has only been done 99 times since 1908 and just 15 times since 1971.

Only 3 other pitchers pitched a CG shutout and had 8+ TBs as a batter since 1908. Sonny Siebert also did it in 1971 (with a game score of 86). Pedro Ramos did it in 1962. Milt Pappas did it in 1961 (with a game score of 91 and Ramos was the loser). Pappas hit 2 HRs, so in a way, his game was even more dominant than Wise's.

Wise had another 2 HR game that year while pitching a complete game. In that game he had a win probability added (WPA) of .384, the second highest by a pitcher in 1971 (Catfish Hunter had a game with .456 although that was only 190th among all players in 1971). Wise's WPA in the no-hitter was .171.