Skip to main content

Treasure of the Sierra Ruben

Before we welcome Ruben Sierra in and out the same door through which Andres Galarraga and Bret Boone walked, we welcome him to the fold, at least temporarily, while gawking at a career that has produced a dozen walk-off RBI.

Sierra has been playing baseball long enough such that he impacted our favorite season, 1986, ever-so-slightly and we revel in the accomplishments in one particular game that year.

Bobby Valentine was managing the Rangers in 1986 when Sierra, then a raw rookie came through. Back then, Sierra was a wower, with a nifty combo of power and speed and a penchant for extra-base hits. He homered in his major-league debut on June 1 and became a Rangers regular pretty quickly.

Flash forward to August 25 in Arlington and a Monday Night Baseball matchup between fireballing youngsters Bobby Witt and Roger Clemens, who was bidding for his 20th victory for the Red Sox. For seven-and-a-half innings this was a pretty good battle, with the only runs coming in the fourth on RBIs by Rich Gedman and Bill Buckner.

Clemens had a two-hitter through seven innings and appeared on his way to that milestone win, until a sudden turn of events. With one out, Sierra reached on a weak infield single, which must have rattled Clemens a bit. The next batter was catcher Geno Petralli and he clubbed a two-run game-tying home run (only the second home run of his career). Clemens stuck around long enough to battle through a two-on two-out jam and though our wish was that he suffered a defeat, just knowing that he was no longer in line for victory that day is enough to give us solace now.

Dale Mohorcic wiggled through the bottom of the ninth and at this point, Boston manager John McNamara pulled Clemens for native Texan Calvin Schiraldi. The first two Rangers hitters fanned but Larry Parrish walked to bring Sierra to the plate. The subsequent drive by Sierra cleared the right field fence for a game-ending home run. It handed Schiraldi his first defeat of the season, albeit not his most significant one.

True Meterra know...Of Ruben Sierra's 12 walk-off RBI, four have come against the Blue Jays, a team that the Mets will not face in 2007.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Best Games I Know: Phillies (Updated)

  The best wins against the Phillies in Mets history …   May 5, 2022 – Mets 8, Phillies 7 The Mets score 7 runs in the 9 th inning to overcome a 7-1 deficit and win in Philadelphia.   April 29, 2022 – Mets 3, Phillies 0 Tylor Megill and 4 Mets relievers combine on the second no-hitter in franchise history.   September 22, 2016 – Mets 9, Phillies 8 (11) The Mets tie it in the 9 th on a Jose Reyes home run and win it in the 11 th on a 3-run home run by Asdrubal Cabrera.   July 17, 2016 - Mets 5, Phillies 0 Jacob deGrom pitches a one-hitter. Only hit is a single by Zach Eflin in the 5 th inning.   August 24, 2015 – Mets 16, Phillies 7 David Wright homers in his first at-bat in more than 4 months. The Mets hit a team-record 8 home runs.   July 5, 2012 – Mets 6, Phillies 5 The Mets score 2 runs with 2 outs in the bottom of the 9 th to beat Jonathan Papelbon. The winning run scores on David Wright’s bloop down the right field line.   August 13

The best Mets ejections I know

When you think of the Mets and famous ejections, I'm guessing you first think of the famous Bobby Valentine mustache game, when after Valentine got tossed, he returned to the dugout in disguise. You know it. You love it. I remember being amused when I asked Bobby V about it while we were working on Baseball Tonight, how he simply said "It worked. We won the game." (true) But the Bobby V mustache game of June 9, 1999 is one of many, many memorable Mets ejection stories. And now thanks to Retrosheet and the magic of Newspapers.com , we have a convenient means for being able to share them. Ever since Retrosheet's David Smith recently announced that the Retrosheet ejection database was posted online , I've been a kid in a candy store. I've organized the data and done some lookups of media coverage around the games that interested me post. Those newspaper accounts fill in a lot of blanks. Without further ado (and with more work to do), here are some of my findings

Walk-Offs in Movies, TV, and Other Places

Note: I'm leaving this post up through the end of the week, a) because I don't have time to pump out something new and b)because I was hoping to build a really good list of entertainment industry walk-offs...so if you're looking for something new, check back on Monday or so... Of course, if there's a major trade or move, I'll adjust and try to post something... In the meantime, click on the "Table of Contents" link as well. It has been updated. SPOILER ALERT: Read at your own risk Caught the ending of "A League of Their Own" on one of the movie channels the other day and it got me to thinking that it would be fun to compile a list of walk-offs from movies, television, and other forms of entertainment. Here's the start, and only the start, as I spent about 30 minutes or so thinking it over Help me fill in the blanks by filling out the comments section. "A League of Their Own"-- Racine beats Rockford for the All-American Girls Profess