The Montreal Expos, the Padres’ fellow expansion team, needed barely more than a week before recording the franchise’s first no-hitter in the ninth game of that inaugural 1969 season.
The Padres are still waiting for theirs.
But they came awful close that first year on this date — July 6 — when left-hander Dick Kelley one-hit the Houston Astros in a 1-0 win at San Diego Stadium. It was the first of 30 one-hitters in Padres history.
Kelley struck out four, walked five and allowed the lone hit in the second inning on Denis Menke’s one-out, infield single to shortstop.